Harvesting Rain Water for WFP

Ok, an update since my initial post about 7 months ago. I have collected and used over 40,000 litres of rainwater.
The resin use has been very minimal compared to my old r/o di set up. We now have 15,000 litres of water in my garage which i think we will use before a decent rain comes again. I figure the savings will come once we have used the rest of our water, the cost of collecting the water and initial storage is very small but the 15,000 litre storage was not cheap.
I also like the fact that once i pull up to a job i can be operating within 60 seconds, that compares to at least 5 minutes with the mobile ro/di set up from before.
Customer feedback is also great, people do actually seem to care about water usage alot. Using our water instead of theirs is better too, i never liked the waste water running down the drive will the old ro/di set up.
New additions will be doing this on a large scale soon.

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What size holding tank and pump?

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Hi Mike, not sure which set up you are referring to so iā€™ll tell both.
Rainwater storage is in 5000 litre poly tanks with a pool transfer pump to fill up the tank in the vehicle.
My vehicle tank is 200 litres which is really too small as i run out most days. The pump running the vehicle is 100 psi diaphram with a pump controller.
I have 3 separate ibc tanks collecting water from the roof, this water is then put through a 5 micron sediment filter to ensure relatively clean water prior to storage.
Hope that helps

Karl

i am trying to do the rain water thing this summer.
HOWEVERā€¦ it gets dry (ie NO RAIN) here. So i expect to have to augment dureing the hot summer months
But i like adding to my marketing ā€œuseing filtered Rain Waterā€

Hi Joshua, sorry i couldnā€™t reply direct to your PM.
I guess it depends on the type of work you are doing if 200 litres will be enough.
If we run a few domestic jobs and some small commercials then 200 will just cover us. Then if we have a big day of commercials 200 litres will last less than 1/2 a day. Our operator usage is roughly 1 litre per minute.
Any more vans will have 300 litre tanks as a minimum in future.

Karl

I appreciate it, thanks. 300 litres, or 80 gallons, seems like it would suite me fine. Iā€™m also around 1 litre per minute. Sometimes less. Iā€™ve had big money days were I only used 50-60 gallons by really saving water and using it wisely. Can I ask what size van would you see yourself putting 300 litres in?

Joshua Adriance
Pure Water Window Cleaning
514.867.8324
www.pwwc.ca

Probably one of these
Volkswagen Caddy, Transporter Runner entry-level editions launched |*CarAdvice
We currently use a poly round cartage tank but i may change to a rectangle type mounted to the floor to save a little space.
I would have a huge van if i could afford the fuel, itā€™s pretty expensive here.

Those vans are very cool. Iā€™m considering the Transit Connect or NV200. North America is extremely deprived of a healthy selection of small affordable vans. I use a Surflo backpack trolley and a 26 gallon tank with motor, supplemented by 5-8 gallon jugs. Iā€™m just getting sick of carrying the things. Saves on a gym membership, I guess.

There are a lot of tank options out there. Hereā€™s one Iā€™m looking at.


Joshua Adriance
Pure Water Window Cleaning
514.867.8324
www.pwwc.ca


This customer in Indiana was frustrated with how fast he was burning through the Hydropower bags. So I suggested he harvest rain water to conserve. This is his new setup now to save cost on Resin

I have been harvesting rain for about 2 years now. I have 4 x 250 gal. poly tanks behind my workshop. I have a metal roof, so I donā€™t have to worry about asphalt or shingle gravel getting into my water, I use fly screen as a coarse filter to keep out the big stuff, and I use a first flush diverter (look it up on YouTube) to keep out the junk off the roof and I harvest clean water. I was a little concerned about the possibility of getting Legionella bacteria in my water, so I got a UV system to kill all the greeblies. I have a low volume 110v transfer pump to pump the water from the tanks, through the UV system, into 2 x 55 gal. tanks in my truck. Then I have a dedicated 10 Ah battery that runs a Shurflo 12v pump @ 100 psi to my pole. I typically get 4 - 5 TDS and spot-free results. My 100 gal. tanks usually last 1 pole all day, sometimes 2 days depending on usage. There are several advantages to harvesting rainwater and carrying water to site:
1/. Cost. Rain is free. Once your system is set up the cost is virtually zero.
2/. Speed. I can grab my pole and hose and get to my first window before my guys can get their pouches and squeegees on and start their first window. No more searching for faucets, hooking up hoses, checking TDS blah, blah, blah.
3/. Consistency. With your 100 psi pump, you know exactly what pressure you have, and it never varies. I have had some jobs where the faucet pressure was so bad that my RODI cart would hardly push water to 3 stories.
Downside:
1/. You have to get rain.
2/. The tanks are heavy on your truck and take up a lot of room (but then you donā€™t have to carry a RODI cart).
Hope this helps. If anyone has any questions, fire away.

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