Pics of your rainwater catchment please | Page 4 | Construction and DIY projects | Forums

29854 said:
Also, beware of “water rights”. Depending on where you live, harvesting rainwater may be illegal. This can happen mostly in more arid areas. I don’t have water rights issues in my area and rainwater harvesting is my only available solution. Horse-Fork-Farm, do you do a first flush of your rainwater before it goes into the cistern? And have you tested the rainwater springs for groundwater contamination? Neighbors near or far can unknowingly (or knowingly) do things which contaminate the groundwater. Also your Pintrest link lead me to one that was of interest to me.
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Old Ways Handy Farm Devices – Cobleigh – chapter 3b Perhaps something like this can be rigged to keep rainwater cistern clean</div>
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<b>Filter for Cistern Water</b>

The problem of keeping water in a cistern clean is most easily solved by not allowing it to get dirty, as can be done by the device shown in the drawing. Two barrels, each with a perforated false bottom, are set side by side beneath the water spout from the roof and connected with a pipe leading to the cistern. Above the false bottoms fine gravel and then sand are packed to the depth of 8 or more inches. On top of the sand rest stout floats as large as can be let down into the barrels. From near the margin of the floats two heavy wires extend vertically upward about 2 feet to engage loosely near their centers with a tilting spout by means of knobs on both the ends of the spout and the wires. When the barrels are empty the floats rest on the sand. As the water begins to pour in one barrel it strikes the float, but is prevented from gouging a very deep hole at the outside of the barrel by striking a strip of wood about 1 inch high, 2 inches wide and 1 foot long. This spreads the flow. A layer of gravel at this place would also help prevent gouging. If the flow is too great to filter away readily, the float will rise and the knob on the wire will engage with the spout, which will be tilted until the flow will suddenly start into the other barrel. If the delivery pipe to the cistern be large enough there should be no danger of either barrel overflowing. When the sand becomes dirty a few minutes will serve to remove it and put in fresh. This will insure clean water in the cistern, and greatly reduce the number of times the disagreeable job of cleaning out the cistern must be done.</div>
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i really like this. the lid on my tank is big enough for me to get inside and at some point in my live I will set up the filter and then drain it and clean it out!

I posted pics on the Berky thread