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Welcome to an adventure in rainwater catchment. The
goal for my project was to create a rainwater catchment system to water
fruit trees and an organic vegetable garden without the use of city water.
The main focus of my project is on a ferrocement catchment pond for water
storage, and the system also includes three rain barrels. It was
a personal goal of mine throughout the project to include as many reused
materials as possible, so collecting materials was an ongoing process that
determined the design of the system.
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| I designed the system based on average rain falls for Arcata and an
estimated water need equivalent to one inch of rain per month. The
planning process was flexible and ongoing. Check out the
"finalized". Rainfall Table
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Because I decided to reuse materials whenever possible, materials
collection was a major part of the project and conditioned every aspect
of the design and execution. Many of the materials were salvaged
from tucked away places where they had been illegally dumped. I
actively searched for materials for the first eight weeks of the
semester and then purchased materials to complete the system.
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| Ferrocement is a mortar of made of cement, sand and water which uses a
high proportion of sand to reduce the embedded energy. The mortar is
laid in a frame build from several layers of welded wire with rebar
supports and dried slowly over 2-4 weeks. Before I began, I tested
three sand/cement ratios to see which worked the best . |
Luckily we have no shortage of rain water here in Arcata. Since
the roof of my house will receive more water in winter than I could ever
possibly store or use, the system collects water from approximately half
of the roof. Storage is essential. |
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