Gutter: Rainwater Harvesting Term of the Week

This week’s word of the week is Gutter. Guttering is generally installed around the roof surface to direct water off the roof in an orderly fashion instead of the water running off the roof in every direction all helter skelter.

Catchment Surface: Rainwater Harvesting Term of the Week

This week’s word of the week is Catchment Surface. Generally a Catchment Surface is a roof of some type of structure. Pictured below is one type of many different configurations of Rainwater harvesting systems showing the roof as the catchment surface.

www.oas.org 

Rainwater Harvesting: What is a Dry System?

There are a few types of Rainwater Harvesting Systems. I expect that there will be more variations as we learn more in the future. In a nutshell, a Dry Harvesting System takes water from one downspout on a partial roof area of the catchment surface. A catchment surface is most often a roof. It can be any type of roof: on a home, on a barn, an area over a bench to shield from water. Any surface that can be guttered can effectively harvest rainwater.

Rainwater in Toilets: Why Use Drinking Water if you Don’t Have to?

With the seemingly never ending drought here in Texas, water conservation is an important means to preserve our potable water supply. This means getting super creative with how we use water. So why are we settling for using good, clean drinking water in toilets? Since it is the norm we go about our day not even thinking that there might be an alternative.