03-15-2010, 11:14 AM
Any house is going to have a roof. Any roof should have gutters/downspouts, etc. You would have to go out of your way not to use the roof of the house. Tail wagging the dog, reinventing the wheel, cart before the horse, etc. I am not seeing the benefit of not using the house roof. True, there is no official food grade roofing but the modern roofing is close enough. Filtration will do the rest. I have no qualms about drinking water from a well made and maintained catchment system. Also I have seen at least one nifty setup where the top of a ferrocement tank is made into a beautiful covered lanai which I think is a better use for it. The actual catchment system should have as little texture as possible. If I were a bird or a rat I would find it less comfortable to hang out on a steeply sloped blazing white, sterile, and slippery painted metal roof than on a rough gray flat concrete roof.