Help me to design a good Rain water harvesting scheme for our school located in rural Bangalore district?

Question

Our school is built in a plot of 2acres.AREA available for roof rain water harvesting is about 8000sft.lot of other water flows during rains.we want to recharge our borewell using rainwater.suggest cost effective efficient methods

Answer 1

construct a trench around the plot.

the rain water flowing from the roof must flow to the trench through a pipe.

and the most important is the trench must not be sidelined with cement or stones . these affect the rate of absonrption of water. and last but not the least tthe trench must be covered by any mean to avoid to make it the breeding site for mosquitoes.

u should make the slopes such that all the rain water in plot should go that trench.

the trench can be 0.5m to 1m

dont forget to extend it to near the borewell for better result.

This is the cheapest method.

another method is to construct a small tank of rain water

flowing from the roof . the tank should have perforated wall .

the tank must be near the borewell (about 1m) and built 1 to 1.5m. deep.

its little bit costly .

to know more techniques

just log on to.-

http://rfcd.pima.gov/wh/howto.html

http://gardenwatersaver.com/

Answer 2

# When building brick walls for water tanks, both horizontal and vertical joints are filled with mortar of a ration of 1:4. For obtaining maximum strength, lay out a circle of bricks or blocks on the foundation without mortar, with such spacing that no brick or block is cut to fit into the circle. A proper foundation of cement concrete will also have to be provided.

# Each brick or block should be dipped in water to saturate and make it waterproof. Thereafter these bricks are laid upon the cement mortar.

# Bricks and blocks in walls should be sprinkled with water just before plastering for bonding. The right way to apply plaster is to throw a thin coat of mortar (1:3) on to the inner wall and then a thin coat of 1:4 mortar on the outer wall while the first coat settles, and so on until the required thickness of plaster is reached. The surface of each coat of plaster, except the final one, is made rough to make sure there is good bonding between coats.

# For simplicity and maximum strength, walls built of burnt bricks, or blocks made from compressed sandy soil and cement, rubble stones and concrete are reinforced after they have been built to their final height.

# Plaster on the walls of water tanks must not be allowed to dry or be exposed to sunshine for the first three weeks. The process of keeping the mortar wet is called curing. Covering the walls with polythene sheeting or plastic sacks, which must be properly secured against the walls using the sisal strings, does this. Water is poured between the wall and the sacks or polythene morning and evening for three weeks. The external wall can be made weather proof (if the tank is above the ground level) with two coats made of 1 part cement to 10 parts lime.

II. Reinforced Cement Concrete Tank (RCC)

Reinforced concrete tanks can be built above or below the ground. Concrete is durable and long-lasting, but is subject to cracking. An advantage of concrete cisterns is their ability to decrease the corrosiveness of rainwater by allowing the dissolution of calcium carbonate from the walls and floors. Each tank must have an overflow system for situations when excess water enters the tank. The overflow can be connected to the drainage system.

Design and construction of reinforced cement concrete tanks shall comply with the requirements of IS 3370 (part-I)-1965 and IS 456-1964. Accordingly the mix of cement concrete shall not be leaner than 1:2:4 ( 1 part cement: 2 parts of coarse sand and 4 parts of stone aggregates of 20 mm nominal size)

When constructing water tanks it is essential to adhere to a few basic yet critical rules with respect to correct mixtures and applications of concrete and mortar. These include:

    * Mixing cement, aggregate and water properly, and not adding too much water

    * Applying the mortar or concrete within a maximum of half an hour of mixing

    * Curing cement work properly by keeping it moist and under shade for at least three weeks after its application.

III. Ferro Cement Jars:

Ferrocement consists of a thin sheet of cement mortar which is reinforced with a cage made of wire mesh and steel bars. Because ferrocement is structurally more effectient than masonry, the thickness of the walls of the container are as low as 10 to 15 mm. Ferrocement components can be casted in any shape using suitable moulds. The technology is extremely simple to implement, and even semi-skilled workpersons can learn it with ease. Ferrocement requires only a few easily available materials - cement, sand, galvanized iron (GI) wire mesh, and mild steel (MS) bars - in small amounts compared to masonry and RCC.

a. Pot shaped container:

The process of construction of a pot shaped ferro cement container is quite simple. The only materials required are hessian cloth, chaff (waste from agricultural produce), GI wire mesh, MS bars, cement and sand.

Answer 3

Please mail me at: [e-mail]

We can work out a plan.

Answer 4

You can hook into the gutters to divert water from them into collection barrels.  Back around the 1940's and before they would collect the rain water in cisterns to use.  However that is considered dangerous anymore since a person could possibly fall into one.  I would be very careful about transferring that water to a borewell though.  That water would need to be filtered before using it for drinking water or before adding it to a borewell.  I actually wouldn't add it to the borewell, but rather add it to a container and add a filter to the container coming out of the container to the line that will be draining off the water to use.

Answer 5

You could check : www.rainwaterharvesting.org

Answer 6

it's easy buddy! collect the water from all the areas exposed to sky and steer it to a collection pit fromwhere the water is

directed to deep in ground using multi filteration systems...like sand, aggregates, boulders, cinders.

A network of pvc 6kg/cm2 pipes can be used to collect the water from different areas and all's done! And start counting your good deeds accumulating in 7th heaven.

bye dude.

Answer 7

this is what i do all the time ,as an Environmental designer ,but i would need a lot more detail for a design

the principal is to make the terrain receptive of all that falls on it

usually land because of natural wear and tear ,becomes convex with creases ,water hits the ground ,goes to the creases and runs of towards rivers or waterways ,

you have to reverse this idea make the terrain concave ,lots of holes ,dams ,ponds ,interconnected with ditches

so that even in the heaviest rain all the water is harvested on the land and not a drop leaves it ,

this is called zero run off.

now is the terrain on a slope or is it flat ??

you need a ditch all around the property with a pond at the lowest point ,

this takes care of the edges

then at evenly spaced distances dig a few ponds and angle dithches from the cannals on the side into them

this means that all of the water above each angled almost horizontal ditch catches alol of the water above it which goes in the relevant pond and this one overflows into the one below

the first thing you should always do ,and bearing in mind the side ditches is build the road or path systems ,

this gives you a design of the property.

roads must always be high & hard,with a ditch on each side ,so that the water runs off

plots for Flora are always low & soft

and the dams are ofcourse wet

normally it is a third for  each concept

one third garden

one third water

one third roads and houses

read up on Permaculture

this book has many drawings on land design and water harvesting

the Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.

and is the best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])

some other writers that are on the internet are

david Holmgren

Larry Santoyo

Kirk Hanson

Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,

One-Straw Revolution

The Road Back to Nature

The Natural Way of Farming

http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu...

Simon Henderson

and Bill Molisson.

a representitive of the concept in USA is

Dan Hemenway at [e-mail]

[e-mail]

http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames....

http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo...

summing up

just imagine to make the property like a songe

that soaks up all of the rainfall

dont worry if the dams leak the water goes into the ground and if you cant see it does not mean that you havent got it

sandy soil works like a dam and soaks up water for months ,which will benefit your borehole

as long as you change the direction of the water instead of overground into creases and off the property ,it now must go into your channels in to hole and into the ground

use existing water flows for your cannals

and if there is a road near by dig a cannal to the side of the road and steal the water that runs of the road (that is always a lot ,if you pick a good spot )

just remember the hardest part of environmental design is the beginning ,the digging ,the shaping of the land ,the form ,but after that you have created good roads ,good places for plants

and a good design and it gets easier as you go along

this will take you a year to acomplish get the whole shool involved ,and plant vegeatble gardens and fruit trees soi that everybody is motivated ,also make nice places to sit ,to have meetings ,I always build a classroom in my gardens and i have made a lot ,also a coffee bar and a pleasant place to hang out ,so that everybody will agree that it was a good idea ,

good luck

if you have more questions

here is my spaces

there is some stuff on design in there

http://spaces.msn.com/byderule