Filling your freshwater tank with rain water video

[pickpaul]

I just stumbled upon this on youtube and thought it would make a great boondocking addition to a bus. I always heard rainwater was great for shaving...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQCqPK-h10c

Cheers, Paul.

[BG6]

The ONLY time that you should drink rainwater or melted snow is in emergency, or when it has been put through a wilderness filter. 

There are so many impurities in the air that the rain falls through that the water is probably a carcinogen when it gets down to us!

[Len Silva]

BG, Good advice, but I would never drink the water from my storage tank, no matter what the source.

[youknowwho]

I had just been thinking about this last week but just for service water. I have a washer/dryer plus can be used for showers and toilet. great idea just didn't like his hose setup.

[pickpaul]

The ONLY time that you should drink rainwater or melted snow is in emergency, or when it has been put through a wilderness filter. 

There are so many impurities in the air that the rain falls through that the water is probably a carcinogen when it gets down to us!

Isn't most tap water at some point rain water? Do municipal water companies have carcinogen removal technology? I would have thought chlorinating the tank and using a drinking water filter/tap would do about the same job? I wouldn't want to collect the water while driving down the interstate with all the road spray but out in the countryside? Most would be used for flushing the toilet and showering.

As always, just thinking aloud and loving the wisdom of crowds.

Paul.

[zimtok]

Most tap water is pumped from the ground.
The ground water has been filtered by nature as it passes through the layers of rocks and soil. I don't know what gets filtered out by nature but then the water is treated by the water department to meet a certain standard. (I've heard that bottled water does not have to meet the same standards as tap water)

That being said there are many places like islands that use rain water to fill cisterns and use it for drinking water.



.

[youknowwho]

I watch the "Green" channel and the "Science" channel every chance I get and both show green homes that are completely off grid and collect,store,filter and use rain water. I hope to someday be able to use some of the ideas on those shows on my bus in a smaller scale. It's very cool what some of these people do.

[busshawg]

The water would be very soft for all uses expect fro drinking, plus how clean is it once a bird does it's duty on your roof! 

[Hartley]

Hey,

Don't fault him, He want's to boondock for months on end and use free power and water to run all his modern conveniences.

Water can be treated fairly easily if you have the right chemistry and filters.
and of course the money to constantly feed chemicals and replace filters.

The other "Island" factor is frequent rains. Yes they do use cisterns usually
built underground that hold 5 to 10 K gallons. Drink it - Not usually
That water is imported mostly on tanker ships.

[JohnEd]

I think Zim is correct.  Those Hawaiians seemed pretty healthy to me and they have been going strong for how many thousands of years on rain water "not from wells".  Course it all depends cause the acid rain is killing a lot of trees up in Canada but then they say we are doing something wrong and are suing us.  Maybe W has a point though cause when he was told of this he asked "so what?".  I drank unfiltered rain water from a cistern for most of my youth.  Best tasting water I have ever had in my life but then I prefer Scotch.

John

[ktmossman]

The new Wothahellizat2 http://www.robgray.com/index_files/index_graynomad.php has a very ingenious rainwater collection system and they use it to "boondock" for months at a time.  Don't know if they use it for drinking or not, though.

[skipn]

http://nadp.isws.illinois.edu/lib/brochures/nitrogen.pdf


enjoy

   Skip

[Charles in SC]

The water in my part of the country comes from a system of lakes with lots of fish etc in them. I think they just filter it and put enough chlorine in it to kill the wiggle tails.

[NewbeeMC9]

Takes care of the Roof air dripping Issue