Believe it or not, rainwater can be filtered into the best-tasting, freshest water you’ve ever had. In our home state of Ohio, there are literally thousands of homes that rely on rainwater for their sole water supply, and thousands more homes that utilize rainwater for the majority of their watering needs.
But care must be taken. While rainwater is filtered naturally through solar distillation, some not-so-fresh things happen to the rain on the way back down -- especially once the rain hits our roofs and collects all the organic material (animal feces and all) that collects there. To return the rain to a potable state once again, there are some time-tested, effective methods we can use for filtration: There’s the short-term fix (great for emergency water situations) and the long-term rainwater filtration method (great for utilizing rainwater for your water needs). Here’s an overview of both:
THE SMALL-SCALE, SHORT-TERM, SIMPLE METHOD
If you live in a rural area and rely on a well (and, more importantly, on electricity to provide power to your well pump), or if you are on a municipal water supply and want to have a back-up water source for emergency preparedness, you may want to consider having a short-term filtration solution on hand. In this case, we recommend using an ozone generator with your barrel or tank. Ozone (or O3), when injected into a water supply, will kill any bacteria and algae in your storage vessel, making it ideal for quick and easy filtration. Ozone will not, however, remove harmful chemicals in the water supply, so extra filtration may be needed and a water test is always recommended. Soon after ozone is injected into the water, it will dissipate, leaving no net effect to the water supply. A word of caution though: Ozone should only be used outdoors, and the barrel or tank it serves should be in a well-vented area.
RAINWATER FILTRATION FOR HOUSEHOLD APPLICATIONS
If you want to utilize rainwater for your home and are looking to install larger-scale filtration, there are a few steps to follow to ensure a fresh, clean, efficient system. (CAUTION: It is tempting to cut out one or two of these steps, but, in so doing, you’ll put more burden on the other steps and will create more work for yourself down the road. After working on rainwater systems of all types for a decade, we’ve learned that lesson the hard way.)
Rainwater Harvesting Cisterns & Systems for Low-Yield, Low-Producing Wells
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