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http://www.aquabarrel.com/product_downsp...inline.php
First Flush systems are easy to install or make for even cheaper. You just have to be a little creative with some experimentation. Just make sure you get union connections because your gonna want to clean it out once a month or so.
I had one on mine. Better yet to cut down on the cleaning get a large screen filter that is easy to clean before the first flush filter. First Flush shouldn't be sucking down leaves or green material ... It's for sediments and nasty stuff you don't want in your tank.
Another tip... Instead of drilling holes into the pipe... Just use a ball valve on the bottom that way you can reduce or increase the flow to your liking. You could also put on a hose adapter and feed that into another tank or banana patch or where ever you want of course that would be a two stage filter other wise the hose will clog up in a hurry.
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quote:
Originally posted by MarkP
I have pondered how much difference the first flush system makes, given that rain is so frequent and evenly distributed in Puna. Granted there are times when the rain is almost continuous but most of the time it is intermittent. The question not yet addressed is how and when the contaminants are applied. Do the birds perch on your roof more when it is not raining? If so then a first flush is a good idea since the contaminant cycle dovetails with the rain cycle even if there are several cycles per day. Other contaminants such as leaves are wind driven. During storms wind and rain go together but what about our normal daily rain?
Consider an "average" municipal water supply. The rain hits roofs, agricultural sites, roads, basically all the nasty crap you would never want to rinse off and drink. Then it gets a rough filtration, is treated with chemicals, and then delivered to your tap. There it gets used, flushed into the sewer system, where it is mixed with poop and urine, including all the chemicals and hormones that people take or use, "treated", and then dumped into a river. The same river that other communities downstream use for their water supply. Those communities repeat the process. On longer rivers it can be repeated several.... maybe dozens of times!
Your catchment water is cleaner than that. Sure birds might poop on your roof. They poop everywhere. Water is everywhere. Catchment water is really the only water where you are getting "first crack" at drinking something pure. Filter it, sterilize it, and it will be better than any water you get in the southern United States at the end of those long rivers of filth that is "treated", used, "treated", used, "treated" used, over and over again. Remember that almost all "bottled water" comes from a spigot in a major city that is treated (again) and dumped in a plastic bottle. There is no reason why your catchment water can't be better, and a whole lot cheaper than that.
The thing that made me think of this- I told my wife that if she saw the sediment on the bottom of our catchment tank, she may not want to drink the water. Her response: "When we lived in Juneau, the city water came from Gold Creek. Our dog swimmed there. Our water is cleaner than that."
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Made me chuckle Terracore.
Before we moved here we lived in Atlanta and tried explaining about Hawaii catchment, I'd still get some blank looks so I started adding that it wasn't preprocessed in the Chattahoochee River.
David
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Please visit vacation.ninolehawaii.com
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We added a floating water intake to our system so the water is drawn from the middle of the tank. The filters last much longer because they are not exposed to as much sediment .
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Here's a barely related question-
When it rains really hard, everything sounds great.
When it's raining lightly, everything sounds great.
Somewhere in the middle our downspout is REALLY loud. Any ideas how to temper the roar?
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It's odd to me that so many people mention bird poop on the roof when talking about catchment systems, when the bigger health risk seems to be from mongoose or rat urine, which can carry leptospirosis, a nasty bacterial disease which can have serious consequences, like liver failure. It's a fairly rare disease... only about 200 cases are reported in the US each year, BUT half of those are contracted in Hawai'i.
And what makes Lepto especially nasty is that you don't have to drink the water to catch it... you can get an infection in the shower, or washing dishes, through microscopic scrapes or breaks in the skin, and through mucous membranes.
So my friends who "go commando" with their catchment systems, depending on 5 mil swimming pool filters and an occasional cup of bleach in the tank to make their water "good enough" really scare me.
First of all, a 5 mil filter is merely a "dust" filter, taking out fine airborne grit and organic particles, but doing nothing about biological hazards like bacteria and protozoan cysts. And while chlorine treatment can be an effective prophylactic at high enough concentrations, the "punatics" I'm acquainted with tend to be too slapdash about how much and how often they add bleach to the tank to give me much assurance.
The UV units are good, but I don't believe they should be the first line of defense. Among other things their effectiveness drops as the bulbs age, and they need to be wiped down regularly. The Ozone Generators, ditto, but they are even more expensive to purchase, and with Hawai'i electric rates so high, they're both expensive to operate.
My holy grail has been to find a passive filter system that could operate without power, yet provide effective protection against the most common "biologicals." For the last two years I felt the best solution was the ceramic filter technology offered by companies like Just Water, Berkey, ProPur and others. Filter rating of .2 mil stops most bacteria and protozoas. Effective filter life 6 months, $25 - $60 rreplacement cost per cartridge. Downside: frequent filter cleaning required.
Recently I discovered the "hollow tube" filter technology pioneered by dialysis filters, as marketed by Sawyer, which has taken the camping and backpacking world by storm, as the filters are .1 mil , need cleaning (a simple backflush) only 1/20 as often as the ceramics, cost only twice as much, but have an infinite service life. And they have a PointZeroTwo Viral filter (that's .02 mil) that can be used for whole house filtering... which theoretically should be able to eliminate the UV unit or Ozone generator. To me that's a very intriguing prospect.
I'll dig into this some more and report back on what I find.
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quote:
Originally posted by terracore
I've spent less $ on my catchment maintenance in 6 months than a one month water bill was in Alaska. AND I don't have to worry about the pipes freezing.
[:p] Yep....
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick
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The sterilight UV system only requires annual maintenance. While the effectiveness drops as the bulbs age, the unit includes a computer readout that tells you exactly how many days until you need to change the bulb and an audible alarm goes off if the UV output is insufficient to sterilize the water. The whole-house unit only uses 48 watts under full flow and then drops to nearly no current draw when the water isn't moving.
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If I had a whole house UV filter... I'd plumb in separate UV line up to the Kitchen and bathroom shower and any hand sinks. Maybe it would be better to just put a T in front of the UV for the things you don't want to be run off the UV Filter.
But I see it unnecessary to UV toilets or washer machine and out side spigots who needs to waste 48 watts when washing the car or watering plants? I guess it's just me.
I'm also thinking about getting a ceramic filter even tho supposedly the private water I'm on is clean ... I still would feel better to run a secondary filter. Berkey makes a pretty good filter. Of course I'm only filtering out about a pitcher of water every 2-3 days for drinking.
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quote:
Originally posted by ericlp
If I had a whole house UV filter... I'd plumb in separate UV line up to the Kitchen and bathroom shower and any hand sinks. Maybe it would be better to just put a T in front of the UV for the things you don't want to be run off the UV Filter.
But I see it unnecessary to UV toilets or washer machine and out side spigots who needs to waste 48 watts when washing the car or watering plants? I guess it's just me.
I'm also thinking about getting a ceramic filter even tho supposedly the private water I'm on is clean ... I still would feel better to run a secondary filter. Berkey makes a pretty good filter. Of course I'm only filtering out about a pitcher of water every 2-3 days for drinking.
Because all the water uses the same pipes. Your sink/shower water flows through the same pipe as the toilet. One has to wonder how long it would take to recoup the savings of not running a UV lamp on your toilet water versus the installation of two separate plumbing systems. The outdoor spigots seem less like a no-brainer because you wouldn't be running two separate lines into the bathroom, kitchen, etc but then again kids and pets drink hose water. You may not have kids or pets but think resale value. I installed one of these http://sinkpositive.com/web/ on our toilet. Wouldn't have done it if the house was plumbed twice.
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