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Old 11-23-2011, 11:51 AM   #8 (permalink)
bennelson
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Oconomowoc, WI, USA
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I do not collect rainwater yet. I intend to at a future point for watering the garden.

In the house, my water expense is WASTE-WATER, the cost to pay a pumper truck to come out and empty my waste-water holding tank.

For source water, I have a well, so the only cost there is associated with electric use and eventually wear and tear on the well pump.

Harvesting rainwater for laundry or toilet use would save me only a tiny amount of money, and would be a fair amount of work (and some cost) to modify my gutters, find space for storing the water etc.

Other things factor in as well. For example, I don't have a basement, and in the winter, any water stored outside freezes, so I really don't have any place to even collect water too.

While rainwater harvesting is a good idea from an ecological point of view (I would be using less ground water, could be gravity-fed instead of electrically pumped, etc.) I really don't have any economic incentive to go for it.

On the other hand, rainwater collection for outdoor use would be pretty straight forward. I would only want to do it for the summer anyways, so no issue with freezing. I could have the rain-barrels outside (right behind my garage) and hookup to my garage gutter would be pretty simple.
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