Rainwater Collection Off Grid: Harvest, Collect, Store and Purify Drinkable Rainwater Off the Grid

There are many ways to harvest rainwater. Complicated ways and simple ways. This is one of the best gravity based rainwater systems I’ve seen. No power or pumps needed to filter and store this rainwater.

This is a quote from scientificamerican.com, “Chlorine effectively kills a large variety of microbial water-borne pathogens, including those that can cause typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera and Legionnaires’ disease. Chlorine is widely credited with virtually eliminating outbreaks of water-borne disease in the United States and other developed countries. And Life magazine recently cited the filtration of drinking water and use of chlorine as “probably the most significant public health advance of the millennium”.

It only takes a cupful of household bleach to effectively “shock” the water free of most pathogens. I usually do this on departure from the cabin and the residual chlorine then has time to dissipate prior to our return. In case there is any residual chlorine in the supply, I again filter the water before use, using an activated charcoal cartridge in my Rainfresh household water filter. The result is a reliable source of fresh clean drinking water that literally falls out of the sky!

Usually when you want to drink your rainwater and use it for your sole water source, your system will become much more complicated. Compared to the rain barrel below your shed gutter that you use for your tomato plants.

MarkerBouy’s system is what inspired our system at our cabin. We both live in a temperate rain rich climate and have access to a steep hill above our cabin. He takes his so much further than ours but I wanted to share his system with my readers. Soon hopefully our system will be as robust as his instead of using a tarp.


From MarkerBouy:

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