Add a Rain Water Collection System to your Home
Why use rain barrels? A rain barrel is a cheap and effective way to irrigate your lawn and garden. A rain barrel collects and stores rain water for future use, and is especially helpful in the dry, hot summer months. “During the summer months it is estimated that nearly 40 percent of household water is used for lawn and garden maintenance” (mid-america regional council). As water restrictions are placed on more and more communities, having a nice green lawn is more of a dream than a reality. But you can have a green lawn and go green at the same time with very little effort using a rain water barrel. A great way to get an idea of how much rain water you can collect, multiply the length of your roof by the width to get the square footage of your roof. Then multiply the square footage by average annual rainfall. Imagine the money you could save on your water bill each month by using a rain barrel.
Using rain water is a natural and free way to water your lawn and garden. Rain water is free from many of the harmful chemicals such as, chloride and floride, that are added to the public drinking water in many municiple cities. Rain water runoff from roofs is not only safe to use on your plant life as it picks up very little contamination, but it improves the vitality of plants, lawns, trees, and flowers. Screens can be used over the barrels to assist in keeping water clean by not allowing any debri to collect in the rain water and also by keeping insects, like mesquitos, from using the rain water for breeding purposes. Also, when gardeners use chemicals to fertilize there lawns, the chemicals collect in the topsoil. When it rains, quick moving rain water runoff drags the chemicals with it into our rivers and streams, which is harmful to fish. A rain water barrel will help reduce this problem as water fills up the barrel first, and then can slowly soak the lawn or be poured into flower beds and pots.
Lastly, water shortage is now a global problem, and there doesn’t seem to be an answer yet. But as people are becoming more environmentally conscience, more and more people are turning to rain water barrels to help do their part to help the environment. In a water “rich” nation it is easy to forget that water shortages kill people each year. “About 5 million people die each year from poor drinking water” and the diseases associated with unsanitary drinking water such as “diarrhea, schistosomiasis, or trachoma, or infestation with ascaris, guinea worm, or hookworm” (ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER).
Rain water barrels come in many different forms and prices, but instructions for a cheap rain water barrel can be found online and you can use supplies from your local hardware store or things you might just have lying around the house.
