Monday, June 9, 2014
State of The Rainwater Catchment Address
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Life off the grid in the SW Texas desert. An experiment in sustainable living. NUMBERS AT THE END OF EACH BLOG POST: temp at 8PM,high temp,low temp,rainfall,wind conditions(CalmBreezyWindyGusty). YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFieldLab Daily live streams at https://www.youtube.com/thefieldlab/live
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8 comments:
Surely you will get more rain before your reserves run out, right?
Hey John, we will down that way for the Chili Competition the first weekend in November and would like to swing by for a quick visit.
Been following you from the start.
The very best thing one can do - to minimize evaporation losses from these water storage tanks - it is to submerge the fill pipe (to near the bottom of the tank)and seal the pipe entrance into the tank. These tanks have spring loaded flapper valves (in the tank lids) that open as the tank is filled - remain closed except when removal of water from the causes a negative pressure in the tank.
What submerging the fill pipe and sealing the fill pipe entrance does - is reduce the evaporation rate out of the tank - proportional to the difference intotal surface area of the tank - to the total surface area of the fill pipe.
ie, if your fill pipe is 4 inch in diameter - you only have evaporation from (3.14 x 4)= 12.6 SQUARE INCHES. But if you tank is 10 feet in diameter (and open to the atmosphere) you have evaporation - from (3.14 x 25)= 78 SQUARE FEET! That makes a tremendous difference in our dry desert conditions.
Or consult with the tank manufacturer - on the way to minimize evaporation losses? Those flapper valves were put there for this purpose - but many people do not use them properly.
Cheers - Ronald Mahan
One sure way to brew up a storm is to get the para/plane out and take to the air. When's it going to be?
NEIL
lonestarbunker
You're in good shape, John. Don't sweat it!
I live in Seattle, WA area but originally from Texas (Austin area). I just purchased 20 acres in Terlingua about a week ago. I have been wanting to set up an off grid homestead for years and am glad I am finally taking the steps to do so. The only discouragement I feel about Terlingua is the water situation. I have many theoretical ideas for water catchment but you know how theoretical ideas, sometimes reality is much harsher. My idea was to purchase a 1000 gallon holding tank; build a crude earthbag dome around the holding tank to keep the temp as cool as possible leaving only the tip of the dome open to be able to access water. Place 30 - 6ft posts creating a 30ft diameter around the structure with a hook at the top of each post. The idea would be to use a 30 ft parachute with the center cut out. Fasten each perimeter handle to a post to stretch it out and someone place a weight near the center to cause the parachute to slope down so that water runs into the tank. Since you are actually there and have practical experience - do you think something like this would actually work? When calculating the amount of water catchment from 1 inch of rain it should theoretically catch about 400 gallons.
It was this post that made me pray for you!
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