Water catching: Shelter in place or bug in with fresh water.

I’m sitting in my shop thinking about what to talk to you guys about today. The one really remarkable thing that is happening is that hundreds of gallons of fresh water is falling on my property. The rain is falling on to my roof and then falling through my gutters into the dirt. The rain is a fantastic way to gather fresh water. In many parts of the country rain is a daily event for a month or more every year.

I was listening to a recent radio show about this man who started a company who set up rain collection systems. The systems are seriously cool and they are built in such a way that they store and filter the water for home use. Even the gray water is re-used to flush toilets. This is important because there are some communities in Texas and California where there is literally no more water available for expected expansion. What’s even stranger is that there are many communities where catching rainwater is illegal. When I first heard that it blew my mind!

So what can we do right now to get ourselves one step closer to preparedness? Get setup with a cheap rain barrel / hose system. Most of us have some form of rain catching on our houses anyway. I noticed that amazon has a sweet rain barrel that has an attachment that goes inside your gutter drain. Take a second and go look check out the alternate pictures, Rain Barrel On Amazon. So if you looked at the pictures….Seriously you have to see it to understand my next part. Ok now that you are back, the insert that goes into the gutter will fill the barrel until its full then continue diverting your water to the drain below. This is amazing to me, because one of my fears was that I would have a huge mess on my hands when the thing overfilled.

No matter where you shelter in place or bug out you can have fresh water.

Now I need a good chunk of hose, I won’t bother adding an Amazon link because most people have garden hose. But most people don’t have soaker hoses. I recommend these because they do a good job of evening out the water distribution while watering only things that are close, unlike a sprinkler. Here is an example of the soaker hose kit I like Gardener’s Drip Kit.

Some people like to do it big! I found a great video on Dwolf29s Youtube channel.

I was also thinking of the different uses. My first idea was to grow watermelons and strawberries (which I plan to do) but there are other ways to use it. For instance the water barrel could be piped to your toilet tank inlet. This gives you a way to flush in case you lose water pressure when SHTF. I know you guys are screaming at me that flushing good water down a toilet is a huge waste, and it is. My point is that its a very practical way to pay for the larger systems until SHTF. Some municipalities have outrageous water prices.

The water barrel could be piped to your toilet tank inlet to save lots cash.

I believe that there is really only one reason NOT to get a rain barrel system. If your average rainfall wouldn’t fill a tank, or even part of one you can kiss the idea goodbye. I would note that I think 99% of the people reading this could make it cost effective if they put some thought into it. So how much rain do you have? Well you can check some of the historical rainfall levels in your area. This website, Weather.Gov Will give you a great start in your water collection crusade. Here you can select area and timeframe (and a lot of other factors) I really think you guys will enjoy this. I would also grab an inexpensive Easy-Read Magnifying Rain Gauge. My employer actually uses these to officially report water conditions to the local and federal governments.

–John Colorado 9/17/14

Thanks for reading and if you guys have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them at the bottom of the page or email JOHN@FatherSonPreppers.com