morning all,
I find Aus. to be an amazing place -- here you are talking about a water shortage and I reckon in the last 4 weeks we have just let about at least a million litres flow down our hill to the lake at the bottom - our tanks and dams have been full since very early this season.
My partner and I just last night watched a doco. about Mexico city - which has huge water problems -- amazing since Mexico City was built on a wetlands ------------- the water is long since gone though besides one area.
But, they do have rain -- and, it is captured by what we saw in only very limited ways -- the odd tank - but, tiny little things - amazing really - and yet, people conserve the water they have - reusing it over and over --
god knows why they just don't put in a bigger tank for the house - they do have the space.
We found a not dissimilar, but even worse attitude in Uzbekistan ---------- dry as a bloody chip - but, they do get rain each year - and, catchable rain.
We arrived at a boon docks place for tea (or something like that) with a local - out in the dust - they get their water from a well - which ain't too generous - and, not a gutter or a tank in sight.
We said to the older man who was the owner --- 'why don't you have a tank'?
basically - we got the response -
'what's a tank?'
hmmmm -- the following couple of minutes of description of gutters and tanks was like Moses had reappeared with a tablet he wasn't able to carry down the mountain last time --- revelations 3 and 4.
Of course we fielded resistance questions like --- 'isn't it dirty?' - getting dirt off the roof etc.
hmmm -- in the end, I think he believed us - ie. that we weren't BS him - (we also talked about diverters and filters and the like - if they were needed etc.).
but, it was just stunning that they basically just had never thought about roof water at all ----- just for millennia - watched it run off their roofs and run away - leaving no more benefit than a bit of green for a short time.
Then got on with a dry life lifting very limited water from the bottom of a small well.
Water is life - pure and simple - without it - pretty much everything stops.
My partner has a massive garden - 6 acres inside 15 cleared inside 30 ac all up.
When we got there - there were 2X 24K litre house tanks and that was it - and, Tassie can have some dry summers.
50K is well enough for the house - we have never looked like running out - but, for a garden - even a small garden - gardens take water like there is no tomorrow.
Even a house tap running a sprinkler for a couple of hours ---------- say 9lt per minute -
that's 9X60 mins --- 540 litres per hour --- 2 hours = 1080 litres
do that twice a week and you are over 2000 litres ----------- 2 tons of water.
Make it 2 spriklers from 2 taps and you are up to 4 tons of water per week - 4000 litres.
Take that out of a house tank in the dry season and - she no go far.
We hold 3 million litres in storage -- the house only has 45K litres (now a single concrete tank) - we have backup rainwater in other tanks - another 75K litres - which just sits there looking silly - the rest is in dams. And, we have a bore which feeds a header tank - which does the garden almost exclusively ------- the fire systems also use this system.
The bulk of the storage just sits there in reserve - for fire or garden in a catastrophic year - we have only ever used storage water on the garden once - when we had dam that was a leaky thing anyway and was just evaporating away - and, there wasn't enough in it to factor it into the fire plan - and the plants could do with a good drink - so, we put a fire pickup in it and gave them on hell of a good drink.
Water is life ----
god puts it on the ground - but, we have to manage it if we want gardens and the like
have a great day all
Pinto
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