Rain Roof - Rainwater Harvesting Project - How To

hey there guys today I'm going to show you my latest project in my ever-growing arsenal of rainwater harvesting projects and that is my rain roof I'll first show you how I built it the structure that it originally started from and then I'll show you how it worked what it is going to be supplying water to and then at the end I'll try to answer a few of the questions that I'm sure I'm going to get as to why it is built where it is in the manner that it is built the height and a bunch of things like that so let's get started the original inspiration for this project began about two years ago when I was tasked by tuff Tech's roofing to conduct a desert exposure test of some of their roofing panels no this wasn't a video project that you might have missed but rather it was an in-house test by them just to test their panels in a high desert environment once the test was concluded I had a perfect prop on my hands and a rain roof was still on my mind so that's what I said about doing one of my main goals in this project was to utilize the existing structure as best I could so I could minimize the need for new materials and the best I could figure was to make one continuous roof versus having the four separate frames you saw in the beginning this would also minimize the need for gutter materials since I would just have one end in which I needed two gutter [Music] I tried to use all the old posts as framework to rigid eyes the new structure but there were a few pieces on the end that you will notice I'm using just some regular scrap two-by-fours [Music] you [Music] once a main structure was all finished I then gave it a coat of paint if you are wondering why I chose white paint I figured I had two different options since the frames were black and white and white quite simply is just what I had the most of on hand for the roofing surface I decided to use galvanized metal this was not from a big-box store but rather it was from a local outfit that forms this roofing from a big roll of steel it was pretty cost effective it came out to be just over 60 cents a square foot whereas I think a lot of big-box stores are closer to $1 a square foot and they will make it in any length that you want I just got him in 7 or 8 foot long sections just for it to be easier for me to handle you okay so now you've seen how it got to where it is now from where it originally started from now let me show you how the rainwater is collected on the roof and eventually channeled down into the IBC totes at my rainwater garden and here's how it works after the rainwater is collected on the roof it is channeled by this gutter to a two inch PVC pipe on top of the pipe is a four inch to two inch reducer fitting that I just made by gluing a two inch coupling to a four inch end cap and then drilling a hole in the middle inside of that I have a piece of wire mesh to just filter out any bugs or debris and then from there it takes approximately a 75-foot root down slope to an area where I have two IBC totes sitting to collect the water the water is transferred by a simple means of level difference meaning the outlet is lower than the inlet where the roof is and you can kind of see that here I've been waiting to show this system in the rain for a couple of weeks now but it seems to be every time we get a rain it is way in the evening after it started to get dark or when I'm at work so I'm just gonna show you at the bucket right now I'll take off this little elbow so you can see the water flowing through but now I'll just walk up there dump a bucket of water in and you'll see it flow through here into the IBC tote [Applause] [Applause] so now you've seen how the rain roof is set up and how it fills water into those tanks what am I actually using this water for because this location has nowhere near my house well this is actually my rainwater garden I have a few videos on this but it's an area where I grow seasonal plants during our monsoon rains off of just the rain water I've traditionally just used annual plants but last year I started adding fruit trees so I will post a link to that if you want to see a little bit more about that and now I'll just show you a couple of clips of what it looks like okay so now I'm going to try to answer some questions that I'm sure I'm going to get from folks regarding various aspects of this system specifically pertaining to the location of the roof the resources involved why it is at the height that it is if I could locate the IBC's up here versus down there various things like that so let me try to answer those first question location why is the rain roof located here versus up by my house or by my shop as I mentioned before this structure originally started out as a roofing test prop for tough tex roofing they asked me if I would test their roofing in a couple of different scenarios in a desert environment to see how it held up and this was quite simply the best location where the roofing panels would get shaded from any of the few larger trees I have on my property and it would be out of the way so it wouldn't be on videos and different things like that so they could kind of have an objective test for a year and a half or so and then the reason it stayed here simply is because I had the structure here I already had the post holes dug and I didn't really want to move it somewhere else and have to dig a bunch of new post holes so is this the best setup for a rain roof in terms of resources used versus functions provided absolutely not as I mentioned before I was just trying to use what I had on hand for this and this is what I came up with ideally a rain roof should be incorporated into some other structure like a carport or a livestock shelter or something where you go getting more than one use out of maybe a porch or some sort of gazebo for example would be a great W structure for a rain roof but you can go the opposite route and go a very resource minimal as my buddy Derrick has I'll post a link to his video down below but he built a rain roof very low to the ground using minimal resources he just used cinder blocks some ground ties and two-by-fours to lay the roof just a foot or two above the ground whereas he didn't have to build an entire structure to get a large useful rain roof and for his property out there it's working really really well and I think is one of the best examples out there another question I think some of you may be wondering about is why it didn't incorporate the IBC totes or water tanks as part of the structure or underneath the roof yes it would actually make for a really compact setup as well as protect the totes from the Sun but the quick and simple answer is that I already had them down by the rainwater garden all leveled out and I've been using them down there and I didn't feel like digging them a foot and a half down as part of the roof just yet but it is a great idea and something I've actually thought about quite a bit is using IBC totes as part of a structure maybe one full wall of a carport or an awning structure so you can incorporate part of your water storage within the structure as well as getting some shading benefit and things like that on that note that is part of my future plans to have a fully underground rainwater cistern up by my house is to incorporate some sort of rain roof on the top side of that and also incorporate some solar as part of that project too because I know that is a huge question that people ask me a lot so now I'll try to answer the question of cost of the various components of this system keep in mind the original roofing structure was built over two years ago so I'll be estimating those costs and these IBC totes were already a part of this rainwater garden area so I'll also just give estimates on that but starting up at the top the original roofing structure as it was made for the roofing test costs between 450 and $500 but I don't believe that's indicative of a similar size structure set up as you see it now because I had to build that original structure to allow for the roofing panels to have separation in between them so that one would not affect the other during the test as for the roofing material that was a rolled metal roofing that I got from a guy in Sierra Vista it was 60 some cents a square foot and that totaled about a hundred and eighty dollars for the roofing the gutter and those components was about 15 to 20 dollars and then all of the piping coming to the IBC totes was about sixty five to seven dollarz the IBC tote I don't exactly remember what I spent on those but I've gotten them anywhere between $40 and a hundred and forty dollars depending on the condition as far as food grade or non food grade depending on your uses but that is pretty much it in a nutshell and I don't know I don't know its neck and the last question I will try to answer is whether a rain roof setup like this is worth it for a small garden plot and some fruit trees I think the answer is pretty clear it is definitely not there's way too much input for the potential rainwater harvesting output that you may get if I didn't already have the structure of the previous roofing test already existing I probably wouldn't have been vested so much into this project I would have done another billboard tarp style project where it is a much more bang for your buck as far as what you're putting into it and the water you're getting out of it but as I mentioned earlier I do plan on doing an in-ground cistern as a long-term future project with a larger rain roof incorporated so I am planning or I'm using this as kind of like a small little test project so that I can tweak things and experiment with this in planning for that larger project well that's pretty much it guys I hope this was interesting and maybe gave you some ideas for some rainwater harvesting projects of your own as for me I'm gonna head inside it's just starting to sprinkle which I'm hoping is going to turn into a pretty good rain if it does I'll grab the umbrella and include some of that footage at the end but as always I appreciate you watching give me a thumbs up if you like this hit the subscribe button for more content like this if you want to see it in the future check me out on Instagram if you want to see behind-the-scenes things of some of my projects and until next time I'll see you next time or something

Channel: homesteadonomics

Views: 3,972,165

Rating: 4.8728728 out of 5

Keywords: homesteadonomics, rainwater harvesting, rain roof, rain, rainwater collection, how to, diy, rainwater garden, desert, fruit trees, green, water harvesting, water collection, rainwater catchment, rainwater project, permaculture, swales

Id: l5Y2vCGz2k4

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 21 2018