Drinking Rain Water.

Rain water collection here is encouraged.
Once upon a time I lived next door to an old Cajun man and his wife.
Behind his house he must of had a 2K gallon old wooden cistern,
Green and covered with moss and Ivy leaves
Pretty sure his filter system included a piece of screen wire and leaves in the gutters.
When the wife made coffee,She naturally boiled the water and mixed sugar with the coffee grinds.
Put this in a drip pot and poured the hot water over it.
I must say, Pretty darn good coffee,Bird crap and all.
Added a special little flavor to it !!!

 

My grandpa had one with tadpoles in it,he lived to be 90 and died of a heart attack. Not cancer.

 

My Father and his Sisters were raised by their Grandmother, after their Mother died from TB back in 1944. Their house had a metal roof with a brick/plaster cistern. He told me about having to filter and boil the water for drinking, cooking and washing. It also had tadpoles and other critters living in it. They had a wire basket on a rope that was used to keep foods coolish in hot weather...the temp. was maybe in the high 50s or low 60s. He said that a drink of milk would make your teeth chatter, at least back then.

 

if water has tadpoles in it... probably not dioxin infested. We swam in a big stock tank that pumped from a shallow windmill as a kid. the tank had goldfish in it and greens to feed them. The gold fish kept the water from freezing in the winter.

Dioxin in the water is a whole other ball of wax.

 

If other complex organisms are living in there the water isn't poisoning them.
Then you have the added benefit of those life forms filtering the water for you, they will pick up any nasties in the water before it gets to you.
As long as you don't eat them.

 

When I was a kid I wondered why we drank water that would kill a fish if the fish was put into the water straight from the tap.

 

We use spring water with a well as backup source (it tends to get muddy if run hard, so we use it mostly for irrigation).

Water setup in basement:
Spring comes in, runs into a booster pump (gray vertical cylinder left side of photo) to boost from the 20-25psi natural pressure from the drop from the spring storage tanks (two 1500 gal poly tanks) to 40/60psi, then into a mesh screen filter, then a 5 micron whole house filter, then into an 8gpm UV light, and on into the house supply.
Bypass line, right above the booster pump, is currently shut off. I can isolate the pump out and go to just gravity pressure (which we used for 20 years) if needed.


Other side of the room is the well setup, with a small pressure tank. Control box on wall, with spare box on wall. Whole house filter on the line tied to the house system. Lines in from well & spring (which is about 4' below ground) low on the wall, line out to feed the lines that go to the gardens/greenhouses, various yard hydrants.

 

Are you able to collect sufficient water for your needs?

I have land not far from Clovis that I want to settle on, so I'll need to look at a rain water catchment system too I guess.

 

This area is supposed to get 20 inches of rain per year on average.
Problem is it actual year to year be anywhere from 9 to 36 inches and I have seen effectively 0 rain fall for 9 months.

 

Rain water harvesting is a good system to store more water in the land and also it will helps to make the earth green for the next generation. Many times I also drink rain water, the taste of rainwater is differenct from normal distilled water. But storing the rain water for long term will need more process and storage area for keeping the water quality very well.

 

I built a practice Aquaponics garden which filtered water through the garden back to the fish tank it worked beautifully, no I didn’t try drinking any of that water but the fish didn’t complain, but they grew from a little feeder goldfish to about 6 inches long and I think I lost them because of the bobcat came in and clean them out.
Along with activated charcoal would be the ideal way to filter water.
We don’t get enough rain here to depend on it.

 

It's the bird dookie from the roof. It can do really nasty things to you if you don't do something to ensure the water is potable.
https://www.homesteadinhawaii.com/turning-rainwater-into-drinking-water-3-ways-to-do-it/

 

In my childhood I drink rain water, that is an awesome experience. I love and that memories are still in my heart. But drinking direct rain water is some time toxic due to recent environmental pollution. So better to use some filters for rain water. It will good for our body health.

 

In the Florida Keys at one time collecting rain water in cisterns was the only source of fresh water--some houses still have them.
UV light
"Overall, UV water treatment is an outstanding way to meet your families needs for water purification. It has been proven to be one of the most reliable, cost-effective methods for disinfecting water and is applicable in both point-of-use and whole-house water treatment applications.Jan 15, 2018"

 

The bird droppings add a certain flavor to cistern water, I draw the line at a dead raccoon floating on top

 

Yeah, the freshly drowned ones are OK in there because they ain't started floating yet.

 

F'k yeah Baw^^^Got that right Buckwheat!

 

I'm on the Island of Hawai'i and both of my homes operate on rainwater catchment. Most of the homes on the East side of the island do. I have UV Filters on both houses and also carbon (activated charcoal) filters. The water comes out clean when I test it. We use it for showering, dishes, and laundry. I personally don't drink it (would in an emergency), but had a tenant who did. For drinking water we like reverse osmosis filtering.

 

SoAz, near Benson. 100% self-sufficient on rainwater
WE GOT OUR FIRST MONSOON! Rainwater Harvesting & Collection (youtube.com)

 

Being distilled water one might add some minerals to compensate.