All posts by Ken Blair

A rainwater collection systems designer and consultant, Ken has designed and installed residential and commercial systems, primarily in the northwest United States for more than 10 years and, in 2014, began consulting and managing builds in other states. Ken is an accredited ARCSA Professional Designer / Installer and Life Member, the Northwest Regional ARCSA representative and advisor to its education committee and is available to speak about Rainwater Collection Systems design and builds. Ken is a United States Navy veteran, having served on active duty during the Vietnam War era. A career entrepreneur, Ken created a new business focus with a commercial dive company in Hawaii in the mid 1980′s to respond to and clean up oil spills, oil spill equipment training, service and maintenance for the oil co-op service industry. Ken is passionate about having a positive impact on the environment and is also a founding director of BANK-ON-RAIN (2011-2014), whose mission is to create grassroots solutions for rainwater collection for consumption and agriculture in developing areas of the planet.
Infrastructure, Rainwater Catchment

Making Smart Choices About Water Use

rainwater_harvesting_icon_-_revised

Rainwater collection is growing in popularity in the United States, including here in the Seattle area. Many commercial and residential new construction projects are discovering that rainwater collection can save costs on complying with the mandated GSI (green storm water infrastructure) of infiltration on site while saving water use and energy at the same time.

Treating water for potable standards is not energy efficient for municipal water districts. Even though water is cheap for the consumer, it does require high costs to maintain this level of quality to potable standards. The reason the costs are low to the consumer is because of the large amounts of water being sold to manufacturing and farming. On a large scale, reducing the energy needed by using untreated water for toilet flushing and laundry facilities could reduce the costs of water from these water districts. Imagine the reduction of energy saved if all commercial new construction implemented RWC for this use only.

AWWA iIndoor water use chartBased on this chart from the American Water Works Association (AWWA) toilets make up 28% of residential water consumption without conservation and laundry 21%. The use of high efficiency toilets, washing machines and low flow devices will reduce the amounts even more.  A simple rainwater collection system for toilet and laundry will reduce household demand of municipal water by 49%. Imagine the savings on a larger scale for energy, storm water runoff, depletion of our aquifers, and demands on a centralized water system.

Every drop of water is important and we can make smart choices about where every drop goes. 

Commercial Rainwater Harvesting

Arts and Science Academy To Use RWC System for Toilet Flushing

Seattle Arts and Science Academy - RainBank

RainBank Rainwater Systems is constructing a 11,000 gallon flat roof CorGal tank for the Seattle Arts and Science Academy on Capital Hill in Seattle. 

The collected rainwater will be used for toilet flushing throughout the school. 

The challenge for RainBank was to construct the 10 foot tall tank in the basement of the building with very little head clearance. 

Electric bin jacks were used to lift the first two upper levels and roof assembly to place the bottom panels in place. 

Seattle Arts and Science Academy joins many newly constructed commercial buildings using rainwater collection to help mitigate storm water run off.

Here’s a short video clip of the build:

Infrastructure, Residential Rainwater Collection

Skagit County’s First Residential Building Permit With RWC as Sole Source of Water

1 Comment

skagit-river-looking-east_medSkagit County Planning Department issues its first residential building permit with rainwater collection as sole source of water.

Property owners affected by the in stream flow rule in the Skagit Valley river basin now have a viable solution for residential development of their properties.

Last week, Skagit County Health Department issued a “water availability” based on rainwater collection, allowing construction of a single family residence using rainwater as the sole source of water.

The system design collects rainwater from the roof, which is pre-screened and conveyed to 10,000 gallons of storage adjacent to the house. The water is pressurized, then filtrated using sediment and carbon filters and disinfected by ultraviolet light for whole house, potable use. With an average annual rainfall of 33.2 ” and 3,500 sq. ft. of roof, 72,392 gallons are available for collection. After household use. the water is returned to the soil through the septic system and leach field just like a well system with no ill effects on the in stream flow rates.  

Simple, routine maintenance conducted by the homeowner will supply this 3 bedroom, five occupant home with a safe, reliable, clean source of potable water while benefitting “in stream flow” and salmon habitat.

Skagit River Looking East