Jul 4, 2008

Water Diverter or "Harvester"



A device to collect rain water from the down spouts of rain gutters. Made from Schedule 40 PVC fittings.


I bought a commercial one of these just to see the quality and performance. My rain events here south of the "Picket Wire" produce heavy down pours for 20 min. and stop - Sometimes for weeks. The one I bought on the web was made for people who have rain events that involve hours of "pitter-patter" type events. What you see here cost $30.00 at the ole' home improvement store. I will leave it to others as to the ends and outs of the whole system. That is your storage set-up, and collection (roof & gutter) systems. Needless to say the cleaner your roof and gutters the better the quality the water you catch. Their are two traps with clean-out plugs in this design to collect sediments and the little grains that come off asphalt singles.

• Starting at the top.
• That is a standard 3" downspout elbow running into a 3" pvc pipe. This is the water coming into the diverter.
• Next is a 3" X 3" X 3" sanitary tee. When your system has
captured all it will hold, water will run to the left at the bottom of this tee. Back to a downspout, and into the lawn, flower bed, etc.
• On the left is a 3" 90 elbow. Here is the connection back to standard gutter. How one does this connection has several different solutions, I have just stuck downspout pipe here.
• Now at the bottom of the tee is a 3'' section of standard pipe - 4" long.
• Under that is a 3" X 2" X 3" sanitary tee.
• This tee is sealed on the bottom by a 3" clean-out plug.
• On the right are 2 - 2" elbows.
• Below them is a short section of standard 2'' pipe.
• Next is a 2" to 1 1/2" reducer.
• Next is a short section of 1 1/2" pipe.
• Below that is a 1-1/2" X 3/4" X 1-1/2" tee. (That is a short section of 3/4" pvc pipe sticking out of it on the right.) This is the piping going to your cistern. Keep this point as high as you can above the top of your cistern.
• Next is a short section of 1 1/2" pipe.
• And a the very bottom is a 1-1/2"female coupling with a male threaded plug. This is another clean-out, or if you are saving a lot of water, another 1-1/2" line to your storage system.


Here is a photo of my storage cistern. The barrels came from the Coke dealer. Wash them out several times before you use them. There are 2 bung holes in each barrel . The bung plugs have 3/4" "knock-outs" in the center of them that are threaded. A 3/4" male pvc coupling screws right in them. This is how my system is "daisy-chained together".


Note the vertical stand-pipe on the left of the system. This lets out the air when filling, and makes for smooth flow when using water from the system. These are 60 gal. barrels, of which about 230 gals are usable when full.



The cribbing is set on an angle. The right-hand barrel is 6 inches higher than the left-hand one.

The whole system can be seen here :
Earth Ship at Lubbock

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is really quite nice. We are going to try to do something like this. Thanks for putting the link on my blog!

Unknown said...

ATUL BRAND- Twenty years experience pipe manufacturer and supplier of Delhi/India, provide quality pipe manufacturing in pvc pipe, pvc conduit pipes, conduit pipes, pvc conduits.

sara said...

Nice post about Water diverter.Resourceful information sharing.
Thanks.
Omni filter

Unknown said...

PVC Pipes
All about Pvc Pipe. Trimurti is the Largest manufacturer of PVC Pipes and Fittings in India.Trimurti is the pvc pipes suppliers, plastic pipes manufacturers and pvc pipes manufacturers. Get details of manufacturers & exporters of pvc pipes, plastic pipes, pvc pipe manufacturer, plastic water pipe, plastic drain pipe, pvc plastic pipe, pvc pipe, plumbing plastic pipes, pvc plumbing pipes,large plastic pipe.
PVC Pipes In India


rain harvesting system said...

Thanks for sharing such nice and informative articles about rooftop rainwater harvesting

click education said...

This rain harvest technique for save water looking very effective but the instillation of this system was very costly.i like this system and your blog very much.