Replies

"apparently my humor is too subtle for your type of genius. Ok, so you have 900 gallons of runoff - let’s assume the various water authorities/EPA lets you go with your plan. Even if you just have a bath on Saturday night (whether you need it, or not) - you need a lot of storage. If you want to survive the drought years - you need a lot more storage. The average family of 4 uses about an acre-foot of water. Lets assume that you can do with 1/4 of that. That still is more than 80,000 gallons a year. that’s about 90 - 900 gallon containers. If you are careful, maybe you can go with half again as much as that. Even if you go to every-other Saturday night baths, you’ll still need a lot of storage. Now you know why people dig wells. "

I am humor bereft. An outlier on the left side of the humor bell curve, can’t you tell?

80,000 gals/365! Who are you really, Aquaman? We (two of us) can and have lived (hygienically and all) on 3 gals a day for extended periods. That is not H2Opulent but it's more luxurious than death. So we can live on my assumed data. And that data is very conservative as I’ve said. Odds are real good we will receive more than .5 inches of rain per year, odds are real good that we can increase efficiency well above 50%, and If we wanted to we can prepare a 60,000 square foot collection area.

I currently have a well. They break. I’m planning for societal chaos. No well man, no well parts.

“80,000 gals/365! Who are you really, Aquaman? We (two of us) can and have lived (hygienically and all) on 3 gals a day for extended periods.”

That’s what cities routinely provide a family of 4 on average (actually it’s more than that). Granted it’s a lot of water, but the point here is that an “average” lifestyle requires a lot of water. If you are not going to shower or flush toilets - and merely subsist, I’m sure 3 gallons/day might be enough, if it’s not summer.

The good news is that should societal collapse come, it’s not likely anyone would try to take what you have to live like you do.

Good luck, and may God grant you at least enough water to flush your commode every day!