Free Water!

[Aqua sobriquet]

I normally take water from a butt connected to the gutter from my shed roof. The Butt gets emptied and cleaned out once a year. The water from it normally reads about 30-35 ppm. The other day the rain was so heavy I was collecting overflow from the gutter and after passing it through some kitchen towel to take out any bugs I got a reading of just 6 ppm. Sadly I only have enough clean storage containers for about 90 litres and I’m three quarters full! 😉

 

[Aqua sobriquet]

After I filtered the water I decided it was a good time to empty and clean out the water water butt. Having done that I checked the gutter and downpipe. As expected the gutter had some leaf litter in it which I hosed out. The downpipe though had a solid plug of dirt about 6 or 7 inches long in it. How the water got through to the butt I don’t know. All clean now. I’ve sealed the top of the butt to stop any critters getting in there and I’ve also put some coarse foam in the gutter near the downpipe to stop the worst of the muck getting in the butt. It will need to be cleaned once in a while bit it will be interesting to see what TDS readings I get in future, one of the containers I checked had a TDS of just 3 which is pretty low?
I’m just waiting for a downpour now - sorry! 😂

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

The downpipe though had a solid plug of dirt about 6 or 7 inches long in it.

I think it is moss off the roof. I get a lot more in the N. facing downpipes, rather than the S. facing ones, if that makes sense?

I checked had a TDS of just 3 which is pretty low?

You will get pretty <"much RO"> from the roof now until spring, now that you've cleaned the butt, downpipe and gutters. All the dust will have been washed off the roof tiles and there just isn't anything to raise conductivity.

All clean now. I’ve sealed the top of the butt to stop any critters getting in there

Daphnia always get into mine, I assume from wind blown ephippia (eggs) <"Ephippia - Wikipedia">. I look on them as a bonus, but I realise not everybody will see them like that.

cheers Darrel

 

[Oldguy]

I’m just waiting for a downpour

I'm a rainwater user and with this latest rain fall I'm bemoaning lack of storage. One of my water butts developed a pin hole leak. Trying to do water changes to synchronize with Met Office predictions Lol.

 

[Aqua sobriquet]

After cleaning the water butt I decided to weigh it down with 5 - 10 litres of tap water with a TDS of 275 ppm. After last nights downpour I now have a full water butt of 210 Litres of water with a reading of 18 ppm. 💧😊.
I too wish I had more storage.