Check Out This Nineteen Year Old Rainwater Collection System!! It Has A 22,000 Gallon Concrete Tank!
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2022
- I've gotten lots of requests to describe my rainwater collection system. This system has served me well since I built it 19 years ago so today I will tell you how I built it and show you what makes it work so well. I should point out that I failed to show the four 4" pvc overflow pipes on the back side for when the tank is full. I failed to say that the tank is 22,000 gallons of usable capacity. I also failed to say that it is sealed inside with swimming pool plaster and finally I didn't mention that we have a reverse osmosis system under the sink for drinking water and ice. I also realized later that I misspoke about the UV bulb replacement recommendation from the manufacturer. I said they recommend changing the bulb after 20 hours but of course I meant to say after 20 months. I hope this inspires you as you plan your own system for your off grid paradise.
Hi Ray, I am a retired water engineer and your system is well configured. The UV lamps had improved over the years but cleaning the quartz glass is very important for good kill. Its interesting how much the UV transmittance changes between roof and bore water. Most domestic systems don't get the level of maintenance that yours does and your level of understanding is very good. Cheers Dave.
Thanks so much Dave. Some things I forgot to mention are that the usable capacity of this 16'x32'x8' tanks is 22,000 gallons. I use a reverse osmosis system for my drinking water because it was cheaper than testing the water to make sure it didn't have any mercury or other metals that might leach out of the concrete due to the fly ash that they put in it. Also I used swimming pool plaster that my mason applied to make it water tight. My understanding is that it uses marble dust to form a water tight seal. The fourth wall also had dirt against it but I removed it to put the solar shed against that wall.
I just came back to watch it again years after building a variation based on a pumped shallow well that is rusty bacteria bacteria-contaminated water. The rust was so bad that the supply pipes blocked solid. You gave me the information to overcome the obstacles and create tested crystal clear bacteria-free water. This is the very best information I have ever found. The Big Blue 20-inch filter housings are invaluable in achieving a top-performing free-flowing low maintenance system. The Mighty Pure UV with meter is also a hidden gem!
Thanks for your comment. Very glad it helps.
I have been on tank water all my life (65+ years) and it's interesting to see how the quality of self sufficient water has changed over the years. It was not uncommon as a child to have mosquito larvae (wrigglers) in a glass of drinking water.
I am impressed with the configuration of your primary filtration system prior to storage in the tank and the use of the ball valve (we use Knife Valves) to release the common stagnant water problem from the underground pipeline. Living in Rural Queensland, Australia, we do not have the problem with water pipe freeze that you experience and it was interesting to see how you overcome the problem. I was also impressed with the size of your draw off tank. Now a days pumps are fitted with an "electronic control head" which has no draw off tank, (leaving you no draw off water in the event of a power failure) and the unit will protect the pump from a loss of prime/ no water situation. The tank can be added as an extra, but most people don't.
Now what I am really impressed with, is the fact you are using a UV monitor and you are keeping maintenance records providing frequency of UV and filter replacement.
I work in a Pumping /filtration / Irrigation store where we sell "Whole House Water Filter Systems" which consist of 4" x 20" 5 Um Sediment Filter, 4" x 20" 10Um carbon filter, 4" x 20" 1Um sediment filter and UV lamp with 360 day countdown ballast. The UV monitoring lamp is "Extra" and in all the years I have been there, not one single person has purchased one. Nearly every customer replaces their filters and UV lamp on the anniversary of their installation/commission, regardless if they need it or not. And yes, according to my training and confirmation by your UV meter, impurities in the water affects the UV quite considerably. Tannin causes the most problems for us as most Rural homes are surrounded by Gum trees - which also adds Eucalyptus oil to the water.
As a foot note on using the R.O. for the drinking water - I wouldn't - for two reasons. Firstly the water is too pure and can be very detrimental to your health unless it re-mineralised. Secondly there is too much waste with the brine water. On average 25% is used, 75% goes to waste - this will depend on the unit.
Keep up the great work with your well thought out and presented projects - so informative
Greetings from Germany, Bavaria.
You have built a very nice system there, everyone should have one, it would save a lot of water and help the environment.
Thanks for the video.
😃😃
FOR THE METRIC FANS:
100.000 Liter or 100 cbm is the tank of 22.000 gallons Ray is talking about.
The tank covers roughly an 11 m x 5 m = 55m² area (based on 11 columns of 1 m wide panels x 1 x 3,5 rows of 1,7m panels while the rest or half row hangs over)
He mentioned that the tank is 8 feet 6 inches tall = 260 cm.
Each wall is 9 inch thick = 23 cm, the foundation / floor is 6 inch = 15 cm thick and and most likely the ceiling too 6 inch = 15 cm ceiling
net space = 10,55 m x 4,55 m = 48 m²
net height = 2,3 m
110,5 cbm theoretical capacity (the inflow and overflow will be below the ceiling for sure as this is usually a safety requirement to give someone who falls into a tank a chance to survive and breath)
100 cbm as mentioned by Ray would require a useable height of 2,08 m.
What a luck that we never had to learn to calculate with inches and foor and gallons in school, only the straight conversion of miles and nautical miles into km or meter.
And it is much tougher to identify an error in the imperial unit calculations while you can see them quite often in metric system when you get that gut feeling 'that result can not be true'
Maybe over time to get used too, but I still can remember my first job when I had to deal with all ever purchased tyre sizes of a car manufacturer (about 8000 back then based on wheel size, weight, speed and tyre manufacturer) to reduce the amount of suppliers and tyres and gain higher economy of scale effects due to higher volumes for less variants.
What a headache we had to get behind all those acronyms to get it right back in the days when Excel 3 and Windows 3 had many limits to handle 8000 lines especially in case of matrix functions, which meant the computer became unuseable for 7,5 hours after changing any figure to calculate estimates. But since then I am at least used to inches or zoll.
Thanks so much for doing the conversions for the 60% of my subscribers that don't reside in the US. I'll give you a few more dimensions that I left out. The outside dimensions of the tank are 32' x 16' x 8' walls plus the 6" roof. It was all designed to use even numbers of plywood sheets.
Thanks for calculating it for us. That's massive !
Even Rsy from Australia. Take some of our rain back. I need a boat.
Just sent a lady your vlog on water catchment!
Thank Ray! Hope all is well!
Love your content!
Believe I’ve watched all and enjoyed and learned so!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’d love to see the clean out process of the outside and inside filters on your system.
This was extremely informative!! Thanks.
I’m thinking Ray for you or somebody to build a tote filter system with a settling base underneath the filter or filters and a drain plug like a spring plug so you could just have a lever to pull and drain. This for off grid people!
After I seen that lady with mice and bugs in there cisterns! This would really be a benefit!
Awesome Ray!
Very timely Ray, our system needs servicing right about now👍
Ray, thanks so much for the detailed water tour, a very nice system. I loved it! You mentioned RO as your drinking solution. I used RO for years but as my kids grew up they started to feel the RO water was not making them feel refreshed when they drank it. Studying the issue we learned that you shouldn't really be drinking RO water as it's too demineralized and can cause your body to have to give up minerals. After further research I installed a separate bladder tank and split the RO output. It now supplies pure RO for spot-free rinsing and stove top boiling tasks and remineralized water into the second tank for cooking and drinking. Drinking the remineralized water I realized it was indeed, more refreshing and leaves you with an added "satisfied" feeling. I literally find myself 'hhhhhhHHHing' after a glass of it now. I thank my kids for the revelation.
Interesting. I add Nuun tablets to a lot of my water because I'm a cyclist. I also find myself using lime in most of my water at home and I drink a lot of sparkling water. Now I have something else to go check out. Thanks for taking the time to comment about this. I don't think there are many minerals in rainwater but there are probably some that come from the concrete tank, which is why I use the RO. Hmmmmmm
Funny, I just published my off-grid water system on my blog a couple of days ago. Rain catchment isn't really feasible in my climate, but it's always interesting to see how others have their water source set-up!
Wish I could like this twice!
Goodmorning!
Thanks Ray for another incredible video....Your skill set shows you are truely a fascinating man. Keep up the videos.
This is similar to the system i have, the difference i have a 7,000 gal stainless steel tank that is partially in the ground. Where i live the ground is more rock than anything else being very close to theh mountains, but it works out very well. The systen you have is great especially the rain water collection system you have, well done, this looks li,e it will go for more than a few years more like it will last about 100 years or more. Great bit of engineering there.
Fascinating..Thanks for sharing.
Thank God I found your channel again! I came across it just last night and can't begin to express my happiness in finding you. I honestly believe most people aren't aware that most of these UA-cam channels are either people whose reccomendations vary based on who is paying them for that video product...or people who honestly don't know enough to give safe and thorough instruction. I am a TOTAL novice and its amazing to me to see all the people's comments of praise under their videos and they can't even SEE that the channels reccomendations are completely different depending on the paying sponsor of the day!
Anyway, I am in the middle of driving from South FL to South GA and something has been bugging me SO bad...and I decided to try and "ask" you for the answer. When I try to understand it online, there are so many things to keep in mind that I lose my thought holder and train of thought that I end up going in circles.
This is probably the stupidest question you've ever been asked...but I'm trying to see if I have this right, because similar questions I see asked online have much different answers than it intuitively seems like it should be.
If I am just trying to get the "feel" of how the sizing calculations work for off grid power...and I use just one appliance (a 12000BTU mini split ac). That's 12K watts per hour which is 288 Kw per 24hrs (assuming its running 24/7), right?
So then when I try to size the battery power needed and PV panels needed to "use" the appliance for 24hrs AND charge the battery for the day...I'm getting really lost somehow.
If I used a 48V 200ah battery, that would provide 9.6kW of power. And that's like 30 batteries! Is that right?
So then...the next problem is If I had a 60K watt solar panel array to run the mini split AC.... And multiply that by 6 hours of sun per day...then divide that by 24hrs in a day (to make sure it would cover the 12K requirement with room for inefficiency)...then "that" wattage of a panel array would give me 15000 watts per hour, each hour, for 24 hours. Is that even right???
Im confused because the answers I see online are telling people they can run a 12000BTU mini split AND charge their batteries daily with like (6) 400 watt PV panels. What am I missing? I calculated needing 60Kw of PV with 6 hrs of sun just to run the appliance and that didn't even include recharging the battery!
So how in the world could (6) 400watt panels do both much less run the appliance 24/7?
I'm really sorry this is so long. But I'm literally voing in circles and hope you can clarify this for me if and when you might have a minute. Thank you.
Ok, first you can heave a huge sigh of relief because that mini split is going to sip electricity. It has a rating of 12,000 btu per hour. That just means it can change the temperature of 12,000 Lbs of water by one degree Fahrenheit in one hour. They are pretty efficient and only use 300-400 watts usually to accomplish that feat. They also cycle on and off and ramp up and down so depending on you heating or cooling load, it may use around 2-3 KWh per day or even less. Depending on your unit and how much it runs you may use as much at 10kwh per day but that is unlikely.
You can buy a kill-a-watt meter and measure some of your plug in loads to get an idea of your consumption but really, just look at your past electric bills and you will get a better idea.
@@RayBuildsCoolStuff Thank you for your prompt reply. I was watching (listening to) your other videos while I'm driving.
Unfortunately its a "no-go" on using past electric bills because I'm a Doctor of Pharmacy (well I was until two June's ago when I had to quit my profession because I refuse to kill or maim people with the CV-19 vaccines). And I'm moving things to a 11.5 acre property in south GA to physically and spiritually prepare for what's coming--and I'm starting with all new appliances and devices so past bills won't really help.
Yes, that's a great idea about getting a kill-a-watt tool! I had forgotten about those.
I am THRILLED to hear I can use a Mr cool split AC at a reasonable kWh consumption number!!! Now ill just have to play with the numbers you gave me to figure out how you got your numbers.
Fyi...my absolute favorite video on your channel is "making sure you have the right (good) connections!" May God bless you and your family.
Impressive water filtration system 👏 👌
Thank you I am ready for more of these videos if you can. This was great. Something fun to learn thanks for sharing.
Just gave your suggestion to another off grider as a suggestion! Tiny shiny home in Arizona! Thank Ray
I sure would of never thought of your filters till my system was poisoned from dead rodents and bugs!🎉
I love those folks. 🤩
Nice video sir, you are very informative and friendly, bless you
THANK YOU!!!!
I think I’ll recreate your system for my mom’s existing house and my future house. But just go with something more basic with my shop and use a Berkey for anything I’d drink there. All separate cisterns. We have a pond for (future) backup that one could send through sand filters. We have sulfurous coal so the ground water isn’t the greatest.
You are a wizard
That's really cool. Water systems are fascinating.
Thanks Ray, nice setup
It would be great to see the 45 minute cleaning process that I am sure that you have perfected ove the 20 years of using it. I have yet to see anything else nearly as good on YT. Trenton Kaminsky is interesting in how he uses a system inspired from the Earthship homes.
Great video. So interesting. Thx Ray.
nice , well thought out system ray !
Great video. I'd love to see more on your water system.
great video ray, thank you.
Thanks!
Thank You!
Excellent 👍
I would love to see your place in person. It is everything I am aiming to do here, outside of Dallas
Thanks. I have been waiting for this one
I have to admit, you were the main reason I did it now. I really wasn’t forgetting you. I was just wallowing in the guilt of making you wait. That may sound like I’m trying to be funny but it’s the straight up truth. Thanks for your long time support.
I love your videos. Tell your wife she has a great shadow and reflection. Your battery reviews are great. I disagree with the conclusions you have about cable length on inverter. I was always trained to run the cables to a busbar and the busbar to each inverter. Keep all cables as short as possible. You have an amazing awesome system. I liked and thumbed up.
The manufacturer is adamant about making the cables equal to the inverters from the common busbar. Kieth with sunsynk actually has a UA-cam video where he stresses it. Thanks for your kind words. I will passs them along to my dear wife.
Using the average resistance of 2/0 wire, .08/1000 ft, the voltage drop of 1 ft at 200 amps, or .015 volts per ft.
Thanks Ray, enjoyed that, looks like a great system.
G’day again from Oz 🇦🇺
I really enjoyed this. I’ll be installing a much much smaller system but there will be many design aspects taken from your magnificent system. Could you make a video about the soft starter for your A/C system. Right now my lights dim every time my A/C turns on.
coming soon
I have had a resistance to poly pipe for water, but seeing extensive use in your application has allayed my fears. Thanks.
Only use pressure fittings for water pipe under pressure. Drain fittings are not appropriate.
@@RayBuildsCoolStuff Thanks Ray.
Thank you for sharing this important info & yes I hit the like & saved to my water list now I’m going to explore your channel to see about subscribing LoL 🙋♀️ have a nice day
Hi Ray, i have built your battery setup with seplos bms and growatt 5000. The house is offgrid since friday and i´m happy it´s running great! Thanks for your most usefull video´s! Greetings from belgium!
That Makes Me So Happy!!!
Fabulous Video Ray once again you show us what we should all be doing, I love the UV system well done.
Thank you kindly sir.
Hey, really love this system and I hope you can send some information.
Another Epic system Ray. Nearly at 10K 👆👆👆
That is a very nice system. I wish mine was more like that. Maybe someday.
I hope this helps.
great line “Everything in my life just barely works” 😂 so true… I have a similar system on city water, but no UV light.. just (2) 4 x 20 filters, 25 micron dirt only first, then a 5 micron carbon filter, along with a bypass. works great 😉 (barely 😂)
Man when you said subscribe i did not know what happend i just looked to see if i am or not subscribed or not! It was insane.
Do you mean you thought you were subscribed but you weren't?
Hi Ray, Kindly, say, Hi, to Ronna for me..
you can make an under bed of different rock particles route so keep some amount of water flow slowly on and this has some advantage !!! let it strugle to pass and collect some in a quality tank and that water is kept harmless for more time!!! but salts and heavy particles must be checked and reduced in the end.. for drinking its worth pay for filtrations!.. the more is the ride of the water through rocky routes the less the CL needed for later usage!!! like a river... its less dangerous drink moving cold water from river than static lake water!!!
You should look at a central water filtration system by whirlpool. I bought one at lowes years ago and love it. It backwashes itself so reduces the chores.
Heya, if possible I like some more indept explanation maybe even links were to get those filter and uv purifiar that would be great
I’ve been thinking about it.
You water video might not be as exciting as a battery video, but, it sure is more important than a battery video. I harvest rain water and use it direct.. We filter + UV light for drinking.
🤙
Thanks for uploading. I've been curious since seeing the cistern in your solar shed video. I have terrible rock to drill thru in Guyana and have been using water from the creek for years now with similar filtration and UV light. I love your sensor and cut off solenoid. I'll be looking for one to add to my system. I also use a office type water cooler that has 3 more filters that require high pressure to push thru, and 2nd UV light built in for my actual drinking water. There is no one up steam (I am extremally remote) so that helps things. Most folks collect rain water, but there are so many critters to deal with getting in the tank (frogs laying eggs mostly), its about impossible to keep them out, so I have stopped with a holding tank for the last year. Never been sick from it, but we pray a lot :)
Forgot to mention another thing that helps a lot. I installed a swimming pool sand filter where the piping from the creek water first comes to the house. It has a 4 position valve and the backwash position saves much maintenance.
I use an under sink reverse osmosis system for drinking water.
I'd like a water collection that collects water, then pressurizes it, then distributes is, using well water as a backup.
Me too. I can't afford well in Jamaica because mainly volcanic limestone from 4M years ago, the well digging company charges around $500 USD per foot. Insane right. I'm hoping in a few years to have something just like Rays and maybe feed into a pressure tank. Not sure if will work but gonna try. won't be ready for 3 or so years yet as start foundation next year hopefully and I'm building what seem like a mansion from pocket and on low to average income 😌🤷🏾♂️
Hi Ray, I really enjoyed your video and like your set up a lot. Was not aware the Guardian monitor existed so thanks for that too. i wrote a spreadsheet for mybown set up to calculate mJ/cm2 where you can input your UV chamber, sleeve and bulb dimensions, and also the UVC portion of the watts output of the lamp to check your flowrates to see dose and compare against the published recommended minimums. Not keen on posting online but I dont see a direct contact for you either. Let me know if possible to get in touch if you want it.
As the video shows, it is impossible to calculate it because the smallest bit of color even if not apparent or a bit of coating on the tube can have dramatic effects on the effectiveness of the UV system. My email is available on my about tab but I don’t need the spreadsheet. Love the thought exercise though!
Very nice system. Thanks for sharing. Please tell me, does UV filter turns on, automatically just the time water is flowing teough it?
No, it must be on continuously because it takes a couple of minutes to warm up and reach full effectiveness.
I have been collecting rainwater off the roof of our remote cabin for over 20 years and other than basically letting contaminants settle in a few 30 gallon containers before going to tote tanks in a dark enclosed room I don’t do any filtration and have been drinking it the whole time. We don’t get much dirt on our roof as there are no roads or exposed soil nearby. Our main contaminate is from tree pollen
What about the bird droppings on the roof and the critters that die in the gutter like that dead frog I found in my filter box on the video?
I stayed with a family in Vermont that had an open cistern for their spring that they used for drinking water. They used a piece of windows screen to "filter" out the wigglies. (mosquito larvae) He said he wanted to cover it but hadn't gotten around to it. I asked how long it had been that way and he said since 1934. I drank my own supply of water while there. They also stored their baked chicken in the oven that was just used for storage and when they left the cheese out one night, they cut the bite marks off in the morning from the weasel that they couldn't keep out of the house.
On the flip side they were completely self sustaining and smoked all their meat and canned all their vegetables, cut wood for all their heat and made delicious root beer from the roots around the house. It was an amazing experience but giardia and food poisoning are not chances I want to take.
To each their own and I'm proud to have you on the channel and love your comment. Hope you will keep sharing.
@@RayBuildsCoolStuff The lowest part of the roof is 16’ off the ground and most of roof has a 9/12 pitch. We don’t really have a lot of birds around. I’ve been drinking it over 20 years and I’m 69 and still kicking fine. The nearest road is about six miles away. We also garden and catch and preserve salmon either by freezing, canning and smoking and canning.
It would be very helpful if you video your filter change out of the 20-inch big blue filters and the service on the Mighty Pure UV unit. I have searched for something on YT. There are plenty of channels showing a mock-up showing how to put filters in a clean never used system. The same is true for a never-used UV system. These are companies trying to sell equipment and just using something out of the box with the intent to re-sell. This is almost no help at all!
I like this broad variety of content about all that house related topics.
And the channel name reflects and covers all that with no one to complain about where other growing solar power channels struggle once they try to cover topics beyond the solar power.
The channel is growing quite steadily but I guess it would have made it a bit easier to cut such video like this in 2 pieces.
I know it all but a lot of the average and especially new subscribers might not watch it due to the length. And this one could have had a clear cut after the pump house with the out door part from collecting , filtrating to storing and pumping plus a second part about the indoor distribution and prepartion.
Consider someone reads the title and usually has no need or interest in rainwater collection then he might more likely spend 10 minutes of his limited lifetime to enjoy and follow your adventures of the past and lessons learned like here the bigger filters and the ultraviolet light lamp checking device than 24 minutes which is shown in the thumbnail and 24 minutes usually feel in the tik tok age we live in like half an hour.
I guess a cut would have been nice and you would upload 2 videos. It just would have required another 1 minutes outro at the pumpstation and another 1 minute long intro walking from the pump station along the batteries into your water distribution room.
You might need some short(er) videos, not those shorts, but just 5 or 10 minute long chapters to get a series of videos you then can put in a playlist. I could have even split in 3 from the collection to the watertank, then to the pumpstation and last one for the house distribution. Not much more effort, but a better stream of videos coming cause now it is a quite long one.
Finally: youtube is a beast and to get into recommendation feeds of new viewers you need the thumbs, comments, people clicking on the share button and the continuous flow of new videos any kind of schedule like 1 every 2 weeks and this would have had the opportunity of 1,5 months of content and higher watch time overall which also counts beyond the whole clickbait and thumbnail optimisation topic the veritasium channel had uncovered with uploading 2 times the same video with different titels and thumbnails. Was pretty successfull and is worth to watch.
I had a question of why you don't collect the water off the solar array where'd you get plenty of water already
Do you have a link where I can purchase the Mighty Pure and Guardian meter? I watched your video on daily basis. You are my tv. Please keep up the good work. I and my colleagues appreciate you. Thank you.
I don’t chase affiliate links. You should shop for the best price. The product is now digital and cost about the same as I paid many years ago in spite of 19 years of inflation.
Oh my, you do all that filtration and UV lights and then you also use an RO system?
Is the RO system a must? How do you get enough pressure for running an RO system?
Thank you for sharing!
I store the water in a concrete tank. Concrete is often made with fly ash that may contain heavy metals. Testing for all the things that may leach out of the concrete costs as much as the RO system. I run 50-70 psi of pressure in my system so I have now problem with the undersink RO unit. The unit has it's own pressure tank that has a bladder set to 7 psi. I have enough pressure from the RO to use it for the ice maker.
I just found you. I have no idea of the technical jargon. Just rainwater catchment. This really interests me. So mhch chemical in the water systems its scary 😳.
Welcome aboard. I plan to do more on water collection and quality along with planning for emergencies. I hope you subscribe.
Have you looked at doing ceramic filters instead of the UV filter?
I like them for survival and camping. Whole house?
When u drain that carbon filter dose it use the pump and is ur light 220v
The UV light is 120v. I don’t understand your other question. Sorry
Great video Ray. I watched a few videos on YT over the years on this topic as I want to build one in 2- -3 three years time to serve our intended remote retirement home. But not seen fitter bag before only the carbon & UV with rosconspin downs which is my plan. Can you teach how to build video please and are you willing to video consult sessions during the design and build process with my plumber when the time comes as artisans on the island tend have limited knowledge on this? Kindest regards
What island are you going to build on. I don’t understand some of your wording. Is it a translation?
@@RayBuildsCoolStuff was half asleep typos sorry.
See below 👇🏾.
Great video Ray. I watched a few videos on UA-cam over the years on this topic as I want to build a concrete below ground rainwater tank of 10500 to 11000 imperial gallons in 2- -3 three years time to serve our intended remote retirement home. But not seen filter bag like yours before, only the carbon & UV with Rosco spin down filters which are in my plans. Can you teach how to build video please and are you willing to video consult sessions during the design and build process with my plumber when the time comes as artisans on the island tend have limited knowledge on this? Kindest regards
Awesome Build Thanks.. I'm stealing most of that... idea
Farmcraft101: What about splitting it out to 2 separate 10" filter systems ~20-10-5-1 micron and then recombining. You handle the water pressure drop. Farmcraft101 design. 10" Much more common and cheaper than 20"
When using UV Always put a U in front and behind UV light when attached to PVC or PEX to avoid UV degradation from light
I think a 20” filter will last longer than two 10” filters. I buy them by the case and a case will last many years.
Wonder if some UV lights in the tank that can be powered on when there is excess solar would help... or perhaps pumping the water via a UV light to raised storage (pumped hydro) would be a better use of excess solar... just need an efficient way of pumping and generating on a small scale...
The effective distance for killing with UV is very short even with clear water. It wouldn’t do much good to just having it burn in the tank.
i have a uv sterilyzer too in my rainwater system mine is from katadyn switzerland with uv radiation sensor, but i switch the lamp on when a pressure switch is detecting a pressure drop.
the lamp burns with 40watts thats too much for my offgrid solar system in the winter in germany. does your lamp burn all the time?
cool water tank mine is from PE and collect "only" 7 tonns (1540galons) but this is plenty for our climate
It takes a few minutes for the UV bulb to warm up and be effective. I burn it all the time. Start ups also contribute to degradation with this type of bulb but it may not trump the extended run time.
That is a well thought out system and I appreciate you sharing the details. For the GAC filter is pressure drop enough to trigger replacement? I have a similar system on city water and notice that chlorine levels start rising but pressure drop isn't noticeable. Also what is that second little box under the solar panels. Optimizer?
I don't have chlorine to deal with. Yes, you are seeing the optimizers on the panels.
Is there a reason you don't have hanging uv lights hanging down into your holding tank?
It wouldn’t work. For UV to work in water the water has to be crystal clear and even then the distance it penetrates is a couple of centimeters. It would just waste energy and bulbs.
i want to build one of these in northern climate completely underground, how hard would that be?
How far north?
@@RayBuildsCoolStuff eastern Washington (spokane) i currently have low producing well with a 2500 gal underground concrete cistern tank, but this thing has just been a giant money pit, i tried drilling another well(400 ft) and it came up dry and had to replace pump twice already ( getting sand in pump) , i want to get a dry drain system or whatever its called the plan is to have tank top 2ft below ground so i can catch all the gutters and not have water sit in pipes
@@Dimka2 the problem I would expect is the piping that collects from the roof would freeze up. If the tank is build to withstand your local soil geology then I see no other issues as the water would be a big thermal mass and would be deep enough to prevent freezing. What issues are you concerned about?
I take it that's us gallons but you're right concrete is the best my dad started building concrete water tanks back in the thirties they were round and underground he poured them in two pours bottom and sides first then the top starting out he started with 3 thousand gallons Canadian by the seventies he was up to six thousand gallons Canadian after he died I went up to where his old partner was building tanks and watched how he built his tanks in one pour bottom sides and top and he also only used inside forms the dirt is the outside form so coming home I built my new forms for a six thousand gallon imperial tank forms had to be constructed so that I could get them out through a 2 foot manhole as we put 3 feet of dirt on top so for an eight foot tank we dug a 12 foot deep hole the only problem I had was trying to figure out dimensions feet and inches do not work on a calculator came out to something 1 hundreds of an inch or 1 hundreds of a foot can't get tape measures divided like that so I broke down and converted gallons to litres and feet to centimeters and I was good to go and it it worked out for those superstitious people who figured 13 was an unlucky number it was 4 meters in diameter when I first started calculating it out I took my radius diameter stick over to the local park that had a good sized peice of asphalt and with chalk drew out my circle and devided it into 4 ft sections so I could cut the sections out of a 4 foot sheets of 3/4 inch plywood I built a jig to cut the plywood on a band saw put it all together on it's side so I had a barrel 13 foot in diameter and 8 foot side to side but I had a problem the forms were not designed to take apart on their side to much chance to break the rings they were quite flimsy at 13 foot by 2 1/4 inches thick the concrete pressure would be around the diameter equal all around the circumference and when taken apart with the nails in the 1x8 by 8ft boards holding the rings up I could could take 1 approximately eight foot section off at a time side forms first stating at the top ring down to the bottom then the 1x8 board's around the side's and then the top beams and the 2x4 then the top 1x8 boards that was scary as you took the 2x4s off nothing was holding the top forms up but the pressure of the concrete at the ends so at anytime we were taking apart the top it could all come down usually we put one post in on the longest 2x4 in the middle that way we could get all but the one 2x4 before we pulled the top forms down we'd put the post near the manhole so we could stand under the manhole and remove it then up the ladder to break it loose one time when my brother was stripping out the top forms it came down with a roar left him in his underwear ripped his coveralls right off.had a few close calls but that was the worst but dad's method was dangerous like that because his 4x4 posts set on the concrete floor so you had to beat them out and with all that vibration it quite often caused the top forms to fall when when you stood on the ladder with your head in the manhole I used telepost so I could just loosen the the pressure off in the end I had metal rings formed out of 2x2 box beam and went to 10 foot high tanks 8000 imperial gallons but building cisterns is a 2 man job and even offering about 30 dollars an hour I had trouble finding a man that would work most of the problem was with the pour over 13 cubic yards of concrete in about 3 hrs then trowel down the top and clean up it was approximately 6hrs of constant steady work because concrete starts curing as soon as you start mixing so it's warm to the touch when you start pouring and even warmer and harder by the time you finish so there's no stopping from the time you start pouring until the last tool is clean still have my forms but I can't do it anymore also it got to hard to find a backhoe operator that can dig a 13 foot in diameter and 14 ft hole and every gouge in the dirt wall was extra concrete and that cost money to fill with cement at 30 dollars a cubic yard and that was 35 years ago don't know what the price is now but a large tank of water also gave the homeowner a lower cost for fire insurance
Pouring ready mix concrete like that is a whole different ball game. That’s why we used shotcrete because there was no hydraulic pressure on the forms. Virtually all swimming pools are made this way but many/most are shot straight onto the dirt excavation without any form at all.
The manhole on mine is three foot square.
If an engineer had been involved today, the sizes and reinforcement would have been greater and more costly. This was designed to be adequate. If it lasts 30 more years, I’m good!
Hello and good morning, your videos feel like an old friend visiting and not an informacial, I don't care if you're a very dangerous felon!!! 😆 🤣 😂
Rain water is fine in a bunch of applications but what scares me is the radiation in the rain
According to German standard Big Blue filters (water filters in general) should be changed every 6 months, not so much because of pressure, more because of bacterias, I don t care so much, because I don t drink the water from my well now, cause it has to be rebuilt with concrete rings instead of those field stones and cleaned too, think my first filter has 20 micron filter, second has 5 micron and third has 5 micron and coal filter, not sure why you have 20 micron after 5 micron?, thank you.
The carbon filter has a 20 µm element with it that catches the carbon particles.
Yeah I'd like to be off of the city water I'm tired of the chlorine and fluoride if they put it Might have either overlooked showing it to us or it was long enough to go didn't think about it usually Usually there's an inch air gap or some type of a one way checkball to prevent backflow from the sewer In the video it looks like you're trying to flush the water works went down into the sewer pipe when I hooked up my water softener back in Nebraska I was required to use an inch gap for rather th was putting it into the washing machine Well sir as I said the other day after watching couple of battery videos an the video on your solar s*** bunch of other videos I'm hoping to see I probably have 5 million questions and you probably have answers to all or most of those questions I just need to Figure out a way to pick your brain and get those answers thank you
1” air gap is important, especially on city water. I have seen a neighborhood water supply contaminated from a water main break that happened while a mop bucket was filling with a hose. The suction from the emptying main siphoned the mop bucket empty into the water pipes. I’ve heard of worse stories.
This gye isn't 19