Harvesting Rainwater

Conserving rainwater is an excellent way to not only help the environment and save on pollution, but also to save money in utility bills. By collecting rainwater and using it in your lawn and garden, you're saving money on your municipal or well water bills, and on electricity to heat the water. In addition, you're conserving water and filtering out things such as chlorine, calcium, lime, and dissolved salts (commonly found in tap water).

How much rainwater you can expect to collect from your home depends largely on the number of rain barrels installed, and on the size of your catchment area. (A catchment area is the total square footage of your roof plus the extension of your eaves.) To make the calculations simple, look at it this way:

For 1,000 square feet of catchment area, you can expect to collect, in total, approximately 600 gallons of rain water for every inch of rain that falls.

To calculate your home's catchment area, you must first measure the area of the outside walls, then add the overhang of any eaves. For example, say you have an oblong house with outside dimensions of 36 x 46 feet, and you calculate the overhang of your eaves as 2 feet. You would add the overhang of the eaves to the sides of the house (4 feet to each side measurement, as 2 eaves of 2 feet equals an additional 4 feet per side); your total length would be 40 x 50 feet.

Great American Rain Barrel 60 Gallon Painted Rain Barrel - Earth Brown

Now multiply length by width (40 x 50) to get your total roof catchment area of 2,000 square feet. So, 2,000 square feet of catchment area equals 1,200 gallons of rainwater per inch of fallen rain. Say your average yearly rainfall is 25 inches. That adds up to 30,000 gallons of rainwater saved per year, and a significant amount of water to augment your outdoor water supply.

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