Our New 2500 Gallon Rain Water Collection System

We just finished up a rain water collection system a couple weeks ago and now have the full construction details up on the site.
The system uses the roof of my shop and carport (925 sf total) to collect rainwater into a 2500 gallon polyethylene container.  We then use  a small pump to pull water out of the container for watering the garden and trees.

The new water collection system.

Building the system included adding gutters to the roof, running 3 inch PVC collection plumbing from the gutters to the tank, doing a first flow diverter, adding an overflow pipe, and working out a simple pump arrangment to get the water over to the garden.

Getting the tank off the truck


The writeup goes through the details on how we picked the tank size using the very handy CLIM20 weather summary  (free from the gov).  And then goes on to show all the details on placing the tank and putting in all the plumbing.  All in all a pretty easy job.

Gutter to tank plumbing.


All the details on the rain collection system here...

More on rain water harvesting, grey water, toilets, ...

It looks like the system will provide about 7000 gallons a year depending on how our actual usage pattern works out.  We are planning to use the water only for garden and tree watering.  Of curse, it also provides some water for emergencies.  We may do a larger system using the house roof later depending on how this works out.

So, this system coupled with the switch over to all dual flush toilets is saving a lot of water use at our place.   This is gettting to be more and more important in our valley.  The one troubling aspect of all this is that we still use a lot of water to water the lawn through the summer.  I don't even want to do the estimate on how much because I'm sure I won't like the number.  I guess that the answer to this is to go to a more native plant, low water landscaping scheme -- anyone know any good resources for planning this kind of landscaping in the Rockies?

By the way, I've added a new comment system for articles on Build It Solar, so it will be possible to easily comment on, ask questions, and discuss each article -- I encourage everyone to use this.
The first article with the new comment system is Randy's attic, and the writeup on the new rain water harvest system is the 2nd.

Gary