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Residential Rainwater Collection

Rainwater Collection in Baring, Outside of Seattle


Mountain landscape with a clear blue sky and green forest.You don’t get much more rural in King County than Baring, WA. With no community water available, being concerned with the impact of drilling a well, and the desire to have a clean, safe reliable source of water, RainBank’s customer chose rainwater collection for their sole source of water for their remodel.

The job had its challenges, but in the end, this compact 885 square foot cabin is able to collect enough water for whole house, potable demand. Historically, this area’s annual rainfall has been 42.5″ allowing for 23,432 gallons to be collected.

The 9′ wide, 20,000lb. GVWR, wooden suspension bridge allowed only one tank at a time for crossing. Delivery of start up water due to a summer install required two water trucks to be used, one on each side of the bridge. One truck brought water from Skykomish and transferred water across the bridge to the other, to be delivered to the cisterns to stay below the weight restriction of the bridge. The bridge’s weight restrictions allowed only for a small excavator to be brought across for excavation for tank placement. The home was so close to the Skykomish river, rocks larger than the excavator were encountered and needed to be navigated around for tank location. Our excavation contractor was awesome!

The filtration and pump room below the house was limited in size for the filtration train and, with winter temperatures well below freezing, along with limitations of excavation, it was decided that the sump tank needed to be placed in the small room as well. (See slides of job below.)

All of these concerns were recognized early on in the project by RainBank’s team and challenges were met, resulting in a very clean 10,000-gallon install. Whole house, potable use from rainwater collection will now provide this cabin with safe, clean, reliable water for years to come with no negative impact on the environment.

“Job well done guys” exclaims Ken Blair to his crew.

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Infrastructure, Rainwater Catchment

Failing Infrastructure is Among Reasons for Future Water Shortages in 8 Cities

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A coastal cityscape with high-rise buildings and a large body of water under a clear sky.According to the World Water Development Report by the United Nations “A 40% shortfall of freshwater would be experienced as soon as 15 years.”Eight citiesthroughout the world were cited to witness severe fresh water shortages due to failing infrastructure, saltwater intrusion, sewage and plumbing failures, population growth, and pollution. The report went on to recommend actions of capturing rainwater, recycling waste water, repairing and upgrading sewer and water conveyance, and education on conservation as methods to curtail this threat.

Seattle was brought up in the report as having a sustainable amount of rainfall to support rainwater collection. As stated in an earlier blog post, I wrotethat thePuget Soundregion would face 6.2 billion dollars in costs to upgrade, retrofit,and expand its freshwater infrastructure in the next 20 years.

Seattle has been progressive in recent years byrequiring infiltration or use of stormwater runoff for new construction for residential and commercial projects. But, more can be done in the way of incentives or tax credits for rainwater collection and infiltration for all existing buildings and homes. Retrofitting existing structures is relatively easy but does have costs. Rainwise rain barrel programscreateawareness, but fall short on actual conservation. A much more progressive program of promoting rainwater collection and education would recognize positive results in stormwater reduction, demands on freshwater infrastructure, and water consumption. Water districts should recognize that augmenting the water districts’ demands with rainwater collection would be beneficial rather than looking at Rainwater collection as a threat to their revenue. With Seattle’s fast growing population, demands on the infrastructure will rise accordingly. By offsetting demand with supplementary, private rainwater collection systems, demand will be reduced — as well as costs involved with supply.

Rainwater Catchment, Sustainability

Is Our Planet Running Out of Water?


Two children drinking water from a park fountain on a sunny day.The Washington Post, using NASA data, is reporting that the planet is indeed running out of water at rates that are frightening.

According to NASA satellite data, on a worldwide basis, morefresh water is being taken out of aquifers than is going into them. This means that our planet’s water supply has hit levels that are not sustainable in the long-term.

“The situation is quite critical,” said Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and principal investigator of the University of California Irvine-led studies.

Of course, the California drought makes matters much worse, as it’s being reported that 60% of current water use there comes from aquifers – and that rate is expected to increase by the end of the year.

Read more from the Washington Post and see the NASA satellite datafor yourself.

Do you know that RainBank is a RWCleader in the Pacific Northwest? To learn more about Rainwater Collection Systems, you can also visit ARCSA (American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association).