good morning and welcome to the
homestead we are working on our
rainwater collection system today we
finally have the majority of the parts
and pieces necessary to put the system
together and we will show you how to do
that but first things first for me to
get the optimal amount of water in this
tank i need to lower it about another
eight to ten inches and that's because
where our evas up here we just need a
little bit more room for our leaf
collector and the piping to go into the
top of the tank so we get the optimal
amount of water in that tank
[Music]
now that we have our tank in the proper
position
and oriented the way we want it and the
proper height for our eave now we've got
to work on these fascia boards now this
shop here had exposed rafter tails
before so we need a fascia board to
attach our gutter to that's our next
part of the project
after we're done getting that gutter up
which is going to catch our water we're
going to show you how to attach all the
parts and pieces to get the water in the
tank and of course if you've already got
a gutter system in place you don't need
to do
this so you see i've got the gutter up
on two ladders here
i've managed to not bend it too bad this
is really probably a two-person job but
i don't have anybody here with me right
now to help me get this up my wife
helped me carry this to the barn from
the house where it originated from but
she had to run out with the girls
[Applause]
okay now that the gutter is up i can
adjust it for fall i just need to get it
kind of tacked in place so i can play
with it and move it so it has a perfect
slope to get that water down to the tank
all right i've got the gutter up and
i've adjusted it so hopefully it has
enough fall but we're going to test it
out with a bucket of water now i already
did an initial test with water and
that's why i knew i had to adjust it so
i'm going to pour this in hopefully i
don't have to make another adjustment
let's see if we can race the water down
to the other side
bingo now our gutter is done and we can
start to attach it to our rainwater tank
now i have some old leaf guards that i
am going to put back on the top of our
gutter just as a first line of defense
because this area of the barn where this
is gets a lot of debris on it but i also
bought this leaf eater this one happens
to be by blue mountain company and a lot
of different places sell this i'll put
the links in the description below this
is that first line of defense or
actually if you put the leaf guards on
there second line of defense but this
doesn't let anything through it it's got
a fine mesh screen here and it doesn't
let any leaves twigs
chunks of bark whatever it is get
through there and in my case i've
actually got some old asphalt shingles
up there and there's some grit that
comes down from it so this is actually
small enough a small enough screen it
won't let that through either and this
is the very next thing that we're going
to put together for our system so inside
the package for your leaf eater you've
got several different attachments for
different size pipes we're going to use
this one which is a neck down from
whatever size they put here because this
was made in australia it's a neck down
to a 3 inch pvc schedule 40 pipe and
that's just going to attach on the back
here like this and then our 3 inch pipe
will connect into it now if you live in
an area where your rain volume is quite
a bit higher than where we are here in
texas definitely use the four inch so
something else cool about this leaf
eater is this coupling here is
adjustable so you can see we have ours
aimed back and that's because for our
configuration it's going to be easiest
for us to do that but
some have it aiming down which is also
really nice and convenient if you are in
a very tight space so for us we're going
to turn it like this have the water come
out backwards into our first flush and
we'll show you how to connect all that
and remember it's really important to
dry fit everything together before you
put everything together with your pvc
cement
now that we are done installing that
leaf feeder we can install our first
flush it's really important for any
system to have a first flush to catch
that first initial bit of water
contaminated water off of your roof so
that it doesn't get in your tank we
bought this special first flush instead
of using just a regular tee with a
downward pipe because this ball floats
in that pipe and then comes to rest
against this stopper right here and it
doesn't let any contaminated water then
back into your tank we also have this
attachment for the bottom of your first
flush pipe which is represented by this
small piece here we're going to put that
on it's got a filter here it's got a big
end cap for clean out it's also got this
hose attachment here
that's where that filter comes in handy
if you want to use that first flush
water to
water your garden you surely can and so
that's what this is for so we've got all
this that we put on the bottom of our
first flush pipe so to calculate the
volume of your first flush pipe you're
going to need to use a little bit of
math that's pi r squared times h so r is
the radius of your pipe i have a three
inch pipe so that's an inch and a half
and the height for us is going to be
about six feet so the answer to that
problem will be the cubic inches of
contaminated water that's inside of your
first flush pipe and you can easily use
google conversions to calculate that to
gallons now the baseline out there for a
first flush is
10 gallons per every thousand square
feet of roof space but that's in a
really heavily contaminated area we're
not going to need that much so i'm just
going to put the 1 6 foot pipe it should
be good but if you're downwind of a
steel factory or something like that you
might want to calculate 10 maybe even 15
gallons for your first flush let's get
this thing on
so remember right now we just are dry
fitting everything so this pipe's kind
of heavy we're probably going to need
some support with it coming off of this
post behind it but we're just dry
fitting now
so we're going to put this in here we're
going to check for the height we've got
the hose and clean out on the bottom
with good clearance so this is where
it's going to go
actually i can let go of it
that's where our first flush is on our
first flush tee now we need to connect
from
this side of the tee over to the tank
okay check it out we have got our pipe
run from our first flush diverter over
to the tank you can see we have a level
on top of it and that is so we can
calculate a decent amount of fall for
the water to get to the tank because you
don't want to go
back uphill or you're not going to get
much water in your tank and the next
step is the scary part is drilling the
hole in the top of the tank so make sure
you've got everything set where you want
it before you drill that hole
so we are going to drill the hole for
our inlet right here in our tank and
that is just below the top which is
perfect and we are going to attach just
this shorty piece today to the bottom
but in the future
we are going to run a pipe all the way
down to the bottom of the tank and
attach
this let me tell you why when you run
this down to the bottom of the tank and
sit it on the bottom the water is going
to come down your inlet tube and gently
come up and out into the tank through
this so it has some resistance before it
comes out into the tank and that is so
it doesn't stir up a lot of sediment
that does actually make it into the tank
and that's really important when you're
using this water for your house but i
cannot do this today because i need to
get inside the tank to do it and i don't
have a way to get back out of the tank i
can crawl in the big hole at the top but
i need some sort of ladder some slim
rope ladder or something like that to
get back out my friend joe over at
homestead enomics has made his own rope
ladder i don't think i'm up to that task
today i think i'm gonna just try to find
one online but anyway this will be
coming in the future all right now comes
the scary part drilling a hole in your
1800 tank
so as you can see i got a nice tight fit
from that three inch hole saw with our
three inch pvc pipe going into it you
want a really tight fit because if any
mosquitoes get in here you're going to
have a serious problem with waterborne
illnesses so this whole system needs to
be
super super tight so you can run
actually a bead of silicone around here
and that will be
enough to keep them out but we also need
to put in
an overflow we have two options let me
show you what those are so it's really
important to have an overflow on your
rainwater collection tank because if it
gets too full it's going to come back
out your inlet and you don't want that
it will mess everything up so in this
tank we have two options we've got this
bulkhead fitting which comes with the
tank already set into the tank it's an
inch and a half uh bulkhead and we can
plumb in some pvc for our overflow but
remember you're gonna need to put screen
on the end of that uh pipe so that no
mosquitoes are gonna get inside of your
tank so we also decided to get this
three inch overflow from the same
company blue mountain and it's really
cool because it already has a mosquito
screen integrated into it and it sets in
your tank just like this so it'll go
directly into it and then the water will
gently come out over the top kind of
skim off and come out and it's simply
like the inlet where you drill a three
inch hole
feed this into it and then secure it
through all these screw holes right here
into the side of the tank with the
gasket on the inside
just kidding we are actually going to
show you what we are doing with our
overflow for the one and a half inch up
at the top all you're going to need is
some one and a half inch pipe you're
going to need a one and a half inch male
to one and a half inch slip fitting
you're going to need a 90 degree one and
a half inch elbow and i do not know
exactly what this is called so this has
a cap that goes on the end it's a one
and a half inch slip
and it has this interesting cap that
just goes on the side or on the end of
it like that that's going to give you
the ability to put the screen in it
so i just cut a little piece of screen
to keep out the mosquitoes and we're
just going to tighten that over the
screen
just like that
so i did get this at home depot but once
i find the name of it i will put all of
these parts and pieces in the
description below so i forgot to mention
we also have this tank listed in the
description below it's a norwesco tank
it's 2500 gallons and it's made for
rainwater collection
so like always you want to dry fit
before you do anything else so we're
going to take out
the plug out of the
bulkhead here we're going to thread in
our mail one and a half inch here
i cut a six inch piece to keep it out
away
from the tank we've got our elbow
and then we have
a
six foot tall
downspout i guess you could say here to
divert the water down now it depends on
your tank your location how the rest of
this system looks after this point and
where you pipe it to but this is how
ours is going to look and then we will
put this slip fitting over the bottom of
our downpipe so of course keep
everything away from any other
connection in your tank because in the
future we're going to use this bulkhead
to can connect to another tank stick
around on the channel because in the
very near future we're going to be
showing you how we're going to be adding
a pump to this and running our lines for
our irrigation for our garden and also
to the house now i want you to go check
out our brand new channel merchandise
like this t-shirt which is right below
the video or on the store tab on our
main page and now go check out this
video right here which shows you exactly
how to put together a 20 by 40 grower
solutions greenhouse have a great day we
love you see you next time bye