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I've always imagined it, but never put it into action. Think about the square footage of the roofs of the buildings you own. I have a very small city lot with my house and my garage combined, the two roofs get about 1/4 of all the rain that falls on my property.

The gutters and downspouts are a natural collecting system I already have in place, just like most people. Instead of dumping that water on the ground it could be collected in a barrel. Or a bunch of them, one for each downspout.

I was just cleaning out a used water heater the other day. A typical 40 gallon tank measuring about 20" diameter and 5 ft tall. When I was happy with my "pressure test" I removed the plug to let her drain. It's a 3/4"NPT hole (the actual female threaded hole measures about 7/8" diameter) the water shot out in about a 1" stream and landed oh about 10 - 12 feet away from the tank. Keep in mind the drain hole is only 6-8" above the ground.

Just harnessing the potential energy of releasing that water when, where, and how you want to has value. If you can drink it or have your plants drink it, that's even better.