frozenstar

Wow. That looks great! Very nice work!

Hack

Thanks! (even though I didn't do the work)

Here's another shot from the back door of the garage. It's looking better. I've got about half of the lower deck framed out. Need to be done by the end of May for the "garden tour"

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

Wuzzat?

How long before it pays for itself?

Hack

The water harvesting? At today's water rates, 25 years ROI

It is likely that rationing will increase, and eventually they will cut off irrigation during summer months altogether. At least we will have a reserve of water to keep the landscaping alive throughout the year. In addition, as water rates rise, the ROI will shorten. I'm assuming rates will rise somewhat linearly over the years, which will substantially shorten the ROI, but it will probably still be long.

One of the problems in our location is that most of the rain comes between December and March. It would be great if we could collect water and use it all year. There is one other way to collect water...fog harvesting. We get quite a bit of fog in the morning during the summer. Setting up netting to condense the fog and drain into the cistern would add to the collection. I need to run some experiments to see how much.

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

oldognewtrick

You did good Hack. Really like outdoor water features. Any more additions planned?

Hack

Yes, I'm building a new deck under the existing deck, and a deck from where that last picture was taken leading down to the patio, an outdoor fireplace on the left of the patio, and of course lighting and landscaping...

Here's the original plan. We've changed it a bit (changed the decomposed granite pathway to flagstone to match the other pathway above, etc.)...

Sorry, this is a duplicate of the first post...

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

Wuzzat?

Speakinawhich, how did you size your storage tank?

I learn something new on this forum all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection

Hack

I used a spreadsheet that helped to define water accumulation and use based on rainfall and water demands. I would attach the file, but it's an Excel file, and this site won't let me attach it.

We figured it out by calculating the rainfall and roof area for harvesting...sort of. We figure we have ~1,000 square feet of surface area draining into the storage matrix. Since we get about .64 gallons of water/inch of rain/square foot of surface, that means we get 640 gallons per inch of rain. We get about 25" of rain annually...which would give us the "capability" to collect ~16,000 gallons.

BUT, to dig a hole large enough to accomodate such a system would have required permits and a soils engineering review to approve. Since this is only a "landscaping" project, we did not need permits for this size system.

I would have loved to double the size of the system to 6-7k gallons, but we didn't want to draw attention to the project.

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

Hack

Isn't that the coolest thing???

My contractor is going to Nepal next year to work on rainwater and fog harvesting systems for remote towns in the Himalayas.

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

Hack

Quick update. I got the lower deck finished. Don't have the most recent picture with the lattice underneath, but this is close.

Got more plants in as well. I'll try to remember to take pictures this weekend and post em up.

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)