City water is just down the street. Literally can see the connection point from the end of our driveway. In the five years of living without access to city water, city water has come down the side street to a rental house less than 200′ feet away. The water is still on the wrong side of the street and was not offered to the three residences on our side of the street. Not that BIF would have paid for the expensive city tap fee after having designed, established, and implemented our water collection system. But there are times when I wish there was city water available for usage. Times when I want to power wash the mold off the north sides of the building, wash the sailboat and trailer after usage, rinse off the tractor once in a while. Times when I want to take a long hot shower and not fret over the 30 gallons of water wasted. Times when I don’t want to collect every drop of sink water, shower water, and air conditioner water. Times when it doesn’t rain.

It has always been in the plan to collect water from every available building meaning that for every inch of rain a minimum of 1000 gallons would be collected easily. The plans are just taking longer than expected. Back February of 2020, the Work Box Water Collection was fully completed and then in November of 2021 the Shop Box Water Collection was started but nothing has been done since then. Well now is the time for completion as there is no water in the storage tanks and no rain in the forecast. Every drop of rain that falls needs to be collected.

Unlike the Work Box with a tank at the southeast and southwest corners, the Shop Box will only have one 150 gallon water tank at the southeast corner. The northeast corner ties into the southeast corner and then dumps straight into the black tank. The west side of the box drains into the one 2″ downspout and connects at the outlet of the tank in a tee that runs to the Work Box.

The Shop Box water collection line will run under the concrete slab to tie in with the water line that runs between the two tanks under the Work Box where the water transfer pump is already established. As water is collected the level in each tank should balance out until the float is activated at which the water from all three tanks will then be transferred to the large storage tanks.

It was this last junction between the main line from the Work Box to the main line under the Shop Box that caused the most trouble. Three times one fitting or another leaked ever so slightly. Three times the line had to be cut and redesigned as the work space was limited and getting more cramped by the cut. Three times gallons and gallons of water were lost to repair work. As it turns out a 2″ PVC water line holds a lot of water and as there is something like 100′ plus feet of pipe running under boxes and concrete slab work that adds to up at way too much water to waste. Every time the line was cut and water filled the hole, the Kid took a tiny little 4oz cup and scooped water into a bucket. Water was sandy and filled with PVC shavings but pot plants won’t care.

Taking longer than it should have, the Work Box Water Collection is completed. For every inch of rain, the Rain Water Collection System will now collect about 700 gallons of water. Now for the rain….