Are Outside Rainboots Prohibited In The State Of Illinois?

FYI for people who have never used Mosquito Dunks before: after a few days, they disintegrate into zillions of little particles that float all over the surface of your container. They’re still working to suppress the mosquitoes, but looks messy. What I suggest is to buy some aquarium fine-mesh filter bags (that are used for holding biological filter media). You can put a couple of Mosquito Dunks per bag. I also suggest that you tie the bagged Dunks to a heavy object so you can sink them into your container. I’ve found that raccoons think the bags are puzzles to shred.

Rainwater collecting is definitely a local thing. Part of my youth was spent growing up on the islands of Bermuda. Almost without exception, all houses there collect rainwater. They are built atop large cisterns that are connected to the rooftop drainage systems. There is a smaller tank in the attic rafters that provides water pressure to the rest of the house. There is a small float valve (like in a toilet tank) and a small pump that refills that tank as the water level up there drops. When I was there, there was NO central water system. You collected, conserved, and used only what YOU collected. Woe be it to those who used up their family water. They had to call a government truck from the island desalinization plant to come out with a tanker truck and refill their cistern with VERY EXPENSIVE desalinated ocean water.

The SWAIL (sp). I dug a pit in an uphill depression, set gravel in the base, then a 5-gal. bucket fitted w/a buried garden hose (at bottom) … then filled the bucket w/bricks (to prevent stepping though), then laid the garden hose down hill where it fills a 100 gal. stock tank. Maybe once every two years I’ll have to clean the collection bucket of fine soils. Except during extreme cold weather I collect 100-gal. in perhaps two hours. My collection tank has an overflow, therefore litter and bugs flow off. The collected water is clear and used in my garden. Water used for drinking/cooking/bathing is processed or boiled. Works great.

Here’s a nifty trick. I scored a bunch of 55 gallon all-plastic drums, which were previously used for a food-grade product. I linked them all at the bottom with pipes between and put a teeny tiny vent hole in the top of each one. All I do is fill one and the water fills the whole gathering of barrels, each to the same level as its neighbors. One end is where the water goes in and it falls through a series of screens before it actually gets into the barrel, so if mosquitoes want to play in the water, they are out of luck. At the other end of the barrels, I take screw thingy off the bunghole to gain access and I bought a pump at Home Depot made of pvc, which fits very nicely through the bunghole in the lid of the barrel and all the way to the bottom of it and all I do is pump the water out. As the water comes out, those teeny tiny vent holes prevent any kind of a vacuum from forming and I have however many barrels of captured rainwater at my disposal, which I use to feed my fruit trees and my container garden.

You dang sure aren’t lying about a rain barrel overflowing within minutes! I remember being all happy when I made first 2 barrels, & I could NOT wait for the next rain….then finally the rain came, & I was outside perusal my rain barrels like a proud papa…then after 3 minutes, they were overflowing with lots & lots of rain water….I really had no idea that much water came off my little chicken coop….let alone a house!! Thanks for the article David!!

1:08 Make it expensive 2:10 Let the mosquitoes in 4:05 Choke the Flow 4:56 Go too small 6:24 Miss the Power of swales 7:33 Muck it up with algea 8:31 Don’t harvest rain water at all I loved the article! This is just a little note that might be useful to others and to me when I’ll rewatch this article :))

Great tips! My 25 year old very large water garden liner gave up the ghost (along with the skeeter minnows, Boohoo) and I’ve seen several local ads for free old hot tubs … did you just have yours out in the open or did you have roof water piped in for the initial fill and maintain when using a lot for your garden? Wet blanket question: How hard was it to get rid of the hot tubs when you moved?

I bought 2 40-gallon faux rocks that are connected to my downpouts. They are visible from the street and I live in a development in Central Florida with an HOA and no one has ever complained because they look like a big rock and blends into the Garden. I use rain water for all of my porch plants (veggies in pots) and also for adding water to my worm bins. During the summer we have rain almost daily so I have too much. But I bought them back in 2009 and it’s been a great investment 👌

Thank You ! We were without running water for 4 days. Irony? It was raining cats and dogs for two of the days. I dipped in our pool for flushing. I gathered rain water in trash cans. Now I plan for preparedness. I was not ready. We had 40 jugs of water put back. Not enough to live long. And the chlorine factor in the garden. YES!.Thanks again. Dani From Louisiana

Question: Is there an advantage to using rainwater instead of well water? Do you have well water? Why don’t you use that? I have a well so I don’t have to pay anyone for water here. I’ve never really thought of saving rain water till recently because I never really had plants before now Just trying to learn abour useful stuff lol Thank you in advance if you get around to answering this 😄

Thank you so much for making this article! I’m currently doing research into what I can use to bring water into my tiny house when I build it, and this helps a lot! I was really worried I’d have to invest in a bunch of super expensive equipment right off the bat, and the amount of water collected over a one-inch rainfall was really helpful in terms of keeping my hopes up about this system!

With my swales, I place a hugelkultur mound on the low side. This slows the water even more as the wood in the hugel mound absorbs water for later use by deep reaching roots; AND, it tends to collect more topsoil/leaves/organic material to collect as garden mulch. Thank you for this and all your informatainment vids!!!

I was unpleasantly surprised at how quickly I emptied a 100-gallon stock tank while watering 22 tomatoes growing in 5-gallon buckets. The sudden reality that the 400 gallons of rainwater I have would never meet the needs of my little garden during a drought year is stunning. We’re rethinking the entire yard/garden. Hopefully, we’ll be able to acquire two more 150-gallon stock tanks before next spring’s rain! And we’ll still have to rethink what vegetables we grow! Shallow ditches cut across the gentle slope of the garden, with straw bales in them, are also an option I’m considering. I’ve had some success growing beans and tomatoes in bales. I’m also saving some of the town supplied water we use in our kitchen. At least 5 gallons of clean water we pay for goes down our drain every day!

One thing I already thought about are the mozzies since I am very allergic to insect bites. I have 2 rain drums and made covers out of stretched pantyhoses – perfect. Even in Cornwall you need to harvest rainwater, because when it does eventually get hot and dry, the waterboard puts out a hose pipe ban for house owners. One way of not having to repair the leaking water reservoirs and pipeines in England, very clever…

Another mistake, no overflow route. Previous owner of our house put in some small rain barrels with just mesh on top and no overflow, so they immediately overflow and run water against the house and ruined some stucco in one area. Luckily there is not much rain here so we caught it before structural problems arose.

I was at the Philadelphia Flower Show in 2007 and picked up a pamphlet from the Philadelphia Water Department because they had a table at that show. One of the sides of the pamphlet stated that when Philadelphia gets 1 inch of rain per hour the average size row home roof can collect as much as 1,100 gallons of water (20 barrels each one 55 gallons in size) per hour. I don’t know what would happen to the ecology of the entire planet if we all collected rain water (there would probably be a LOT MORE drought in certain areas), but imagine how much water we wouldn’t waste (or pollute) if there was a nationwide campaign in “wealthy countries” to put rain barrels with pumped filtration systems in the back yard of every single family home in the whole country.

This might be a dumb idea but here goes: I have some bananas that aren’t getting enough water and they’re too far out to irrigate, so I’m setting up an old garbage can behind them. I’m going to screen the top and put one hole in the bottom of the can to allow caught water to seep out. Or I might put a spigot on it since the bananas will be getting water while it’s raining and I could save the water for when it’s not raining.

Be really careful dude, I live in FL too and only have it set up to harvest for the chickens which flows into an automatic watering bowl for all 3 coops. And when I had my npip renewal inspection the lady from dept of agriculture reported it and i got fined. It’s apparently against the law to harvest rain water in FL. Just be careful! I still do it, I just hide it a bit better now LOL

I have used “Dunks” for over 10 years. When walking around a pond I put one in the edge (in the grass) so it won’t blow somewhere else, every 3 paces (approx. 9′ or 3m). A ditch needs one per 6m square or 50 square feet. #1 thing to do is reapply (not every month as recommended by manufacturer) but every 28 days. I will climb out of bed at 11 at night to spend an hour “dunking” because I have found every time I dunk at 29 or more days there is a flush of mosquitoes for a few days. Great product.

I love the idea about using a pvc shut off valve instead of a faucet,i almost made mistake #3,thanks for sharing.I have used dishwashing liquid in some of the buckets that i collect water in and it seems to help with mosquito larvae,because it creates a film over the water just like oil and kills the larvae.But on my new rain barrels i will definitely put a lid on them.I will try those tablets you spoke about,just to make sure.

Thank you for this excellent article. We are getting 2 used 275 gal food containers off craigslist to harvest rainwater from our gutters–My fellow homesteader (my almost 4-year-old) and i love your articles. She calls you “Deva”–which is kind of cool because one meaning of the word “deva” is a plant spirit. Would love a couple big solar panels to harvest sunlight too, but can’t afford that yet. Ever consider doing a vid on sun harvesting with cheap options? (if any exist).

Seriously, that rap capped it off. Well done, my friend. Worth a sub and have to check out your website just to see what else you’re rappin’ about, or what’s next? I’ve been designing large, customized and hidden rainwater storage for awhile and you nailed it– doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, a barrel or 2 isn’t enough, and the worst mistake is to do is nothing. I love that you talked about swales.

Haha great ideas one of my rain barrels fell over yes I went cheap on amazon anyways I get what I pay for soft plastic. Anyways the idea came to mind to use my recycle bin in the meantime so I did. Yet with the heavy rain today and trash days Tuesday you mentioned use trash can and I am…lol. Great 👍 ideas

Fortunately for me I went to a few Casinos and won quite a bit of money. I then played the Lotto game for Pick Four and won some more money. With that money I bought a farm in Puerto Rico and it has a flowing river through the Middle of my property. The farm had a small shack. So I knocked it down and built my house. Here we get a lot of rain. Especially during the rainy season. So I built my house to harvest rain water and store it. Mosquitoes were a big problem. But pantyhose took care of that. I decided to expand my system and purchased a Water Distillation System with a Reverse Osmosis backup system. I’m completely off the grid so solar energy is my source of electricity. Since I had the money I went BIG on my systems. The average rain downfall gives me around Four Million Gallons of Rain water every two Months during the rainy season. So my Architect told me to build an Olympic size swimming pool under the house. The soil engineers told me that an Olympic Size swimming pool can hold up to Four Million Gallons of water. That swimming pool became my water storage tanks. My property has hills and mountains. Thus the large amount of water flow. Having eight children water is essential. Especially clean, safe drinking water. So I purchased a UV WATER STERILIZER SYSTEM for my water storage system and an aquarium pump just to keep the water moving and to prevent that old water smell. I don’t consider that I wasted my money on my rain water HARVESTING systems. Because I went to the Casinos with very little money and walked out with over $70,000.

I collect rainwater from my barn roof. The gutters feed directly into two 500-gallon above-ground tanks. Tank A overflows into Tank B; Tank B overflows into my horse trough. The horse trough is the only water whose surface is exposed to mosquitos, and I use Mosquito Dunks there. Don’t really have a mosquito problem. (I’m planning on hanging some bat houses near the barn, though.) I set up this system to supplement springwater for use at the house, but I found that rainwater from the barn supplies all my watering and washing needs. I pump water from the two 500-gallon barn tanks into a 2100-gallon storage tank to get me through dry spells. I buy filtered water for drinking and cooking. The only real problem I have is keeping algae and blue-green bacteria under control in the tanks, as they are all above-ground. If I ever set up this system again I will use opaque tanks. For these existing tanks, I painted the big one, and I’m building sheds around the others.

I live in a semi-desert area, and I managed to live for two years with only a small tarp, 3×4 meters, that I hung up to collect water into two 250 liter barrels whenever it rained (very rare), then I filtered it through a tiny Mini Sawyer filter in a gravity-fed setup, just 8 liters at a time, and stored it indoors in barrels and bottles. This was for drinking and cooking only, as I had a stream nearby that I carried up water from in buckets, for cleaning an watering plants.

Good article and it’s all true. Many served as reminders, thanks David… my water collector is legendary… it is multi level. Advice I can give is to not be scared to experiment with your collector. Garbage cans work very well but take forever to fill, they are best used as mini cisterns if you will. I use them as “Long Term Storage” during a severe rain storm. An inch of rain? Where do you live?? Other advice, collect as much as you can, if you have to get rid of it, it’s rain water. Another piece of advice is, avoid IBC’s, too complicated for nothing.

I collected snow recently and let it melt for my house plants. I noticed that it had a film after melting and was worried about introducing bacteria or other harmful agents to my living babies. I’m in Washington state so I’m thinking our rain water is pure enough. Should I boil it before using it? Or does this defeat the purpose? I don’t want to keep buying distilled jugs in the store when I have such a great source from the sky! Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the article 🙂

Catching rain water isnt all that hard, mostly you use a bucket. I perfer the sixteen gauge bucket over a twelve gauge bucket. Their smaller and easier to haul. Now planting rain water, thats a bit tricky. You have to be tall, I mean realy tall. Those drops have to start from a particular alitude or they dont count as rain. Hell I learned all this stuff in 8th grade out behind the school.

My dad used to have me catch tadpoles for his rain barrells…..no mosquitoes and the garden was full of frogs eating bugs….the frogs attracted garden snakes which also eat slugs and other garden pests including mice….bury a few small clay pots sideways half empty and the frogs have safe moist hiding from the sun

Also, rain water is NOT great water. It containes dust and pollution and can house pathogens. Its not potable and should not be consumed unless filtered. Granted, I live on the USA so pollution may be a bigger factor for my location than yours, but your untreated water definately contains more microbes than mine.

Saving rain water is great ! Thank you for the article, We also save our kitchen sink water and we have an ECO-HOT valve in our bathroom ! What’s that ? It’s a valve that fills your toilet tank with the cold water from the HOT water pipe! After the hot water arrives at your ECO-HOT valve; the valve turns off the hot water and turns on the cold water to finish filling the toilet tank. This draws the hot water to your bathroom so you don’t have to run it down the drain waiting for hot water. Yes you do have to flush the toilet before a shower but doesn’t everyone use the toilet before showering ? It’s better than using the toilet after a shower or IN the shower!

Any runoff, roof or otherwise needs to be filtered and FULLY sterilized to clean it of bacteria, bird droppings and various other debris if using it for more than just garden water. Even then, it should be filtered and cleaned. There can be alot of debris, mold, and disease and bacteria from birds, that can be present in roof water run-off that could contaminate the water. Great to have, but needs to be cleaned and filtered accordingly.

thank you sr. I started my rain water collection with leaf filters/gutters. and screened 55 gallon rain barrels w/ just garden hoses . I ran all barrels to a sup pump in a buried container I placed a 1500 gallon tank, the sump filled the 1500 gallon tank in in less then 2 hours of rain so I bought 2 more 1500 gal tanks (4500 gal). they were filled in no time. 2 storms did the trick.i live in Fresno County ca. (Drought) so if I can do this in the high desert you can too. oh ya I almost for got im collecting this h20 off of a 1200 sq ft roof. with 3 rain gutters.

Hi there, Where I am living in the southeast of England/UK, we are going through one of the most hottest summers and in most area’s are put on water hose pipe ban to stop using more water for our gardens and vegetable allotments. We have the English dream of a life time as opposed to rain, rain and more rain, replaced by heat, heat and still more sun!! Many home owners that have water collecting systems will not necessary have considered all contributed information that has been gathered here, I write to thank you very much for you and your viewers comments, all very informative and worthwhile reading. Massive Building program/development. In the UK we are going through a massive house building time and because of such we need to be aware that in these areas of higher growth/building, the impact on citizens living in these areas is unseen but made worse for asthmatics and those suffering allergies and possibly not thought too much about for those unaffected. The building/works in these areas causes a great deal of fumes and dirt / dust that requires more water then ever to clean off windows inside and out, all building walls,ceilings, paint works, house gutters, roofs, greenhouses, conservatories, cars etc., the air /rain falling and catching the dug earth and dirt debris that is being built enters our bodies and enter our systems. However also enters the system we live in that now include building chemicals which filter into the air/water system that on its way is used by vegetables/fruit and local farms, local streams contributing to the bigger rivers, Where building developers move in, they should receives direct instructions powered by law makers overseen by those locally elected to safeguard existing and forthcoming residents that elect them, that all areas defined to be built on prior to the build and throughout the passage of development taking place, that the developers are responsible for the area’s rodents population prior to and during develpment.

I’m living in this house we are renting, the owner doesn’t mind too much what we do as long as it’s HOA approved (arg HOA) we don’t have gutters we have another year before we move or more and idc as much about whether or not I’m able to take the system with us at the next place (would rather someone who rents out the place be able to use it but it’s whatever) Do you have any suggestions? Also, can you store the rainwater in large containers/old large bottles? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hey David, THANKS SOOO MUCH FOR THIS article. I just feel like I really need to tell you something. You are offered love beyond any human capacity. Jesus Christ(Yahusha Hamashiach) sees YOU and wants to know you. I care about your eternity and He wants you to repent. A lot of people have been deceived by the devil to think that sin is no longer serious and that all we need is to believe in Yahusha(Jesus) but even the demons believe but yet they’re not saved… It is written that a friend of the world is an enemy of Yahuah(God). ” Let Yahuah(God) be true and every man a liar”. The devil has blinded the world and made us believe in ‘religions’, this is dangerous because religion relies on your works to get you to heaven and satan is behind religions such as Islam, Hindu, Catholicism even some parts of Christianity etc. Yahusha(Jesus) is not about a religion, it’s a relationship. Most preachers are not preaching the truth that sin leads to eternal torment in a very real place called hell because they care more about numbers & how to comfort you to hell than rebuke you to heaven. For too long we’ve gone to church on Sunday to hear a message on what Yahuah(God) can do for me and not ‘how can i do more to glorify Him and keep His commandments forsaking a lukewarm watered down faith?’ There are too many people who have been taught that once you’ve said a prayer of salvation, you’re saved even if you continue living the same sinful life. We cant use (Yahuah’s)Gods grace as a ticket to continue sinning.

Be very careful about using a used barrel or bucket for potable water. If it was originally a container for chemicals or solvents the plastic will have absorbed some of the chemicals that were previously in the barrel or bucket, yes, even though it’s plastic, and then leach out into the water. There will be trace amounts of the insecticide, solvents, whatever was originally contained in the barrel or bucket. I would not even pick garden vegetables into a chemical bucket, no matter how well you think it’s been washed out.

Another cleaner would be a charcoal filter, just as you do for a fish tank. I have a flat roof with silicone top, gutter fed catchment into a pipe fed barrel with charcoal filter. works great! Distilling the water is a good idea because all the aluminum and barium in the atmosphere from chem trails, but if you can’t it’s the next best thing.

Since we “went frugal” and became homesteaders I am OBSESSED with rain catchment. We have about 2,000 gallons of rain water catchment so far. One Mother’s Day I asked my husband/kids to convert our toilet flushing (we have city water) to rain water. It’s saved us a ton of money and we’re not voiding into chlorinated water. 🙂 Good article!

Potability is also bacteria free water. Not just contaminants. Your covers dont meet that requirement. Dipping into the barrel is not a good idea for consumption. Older people, babies and people with compromised immune systems should avoid water that is not deemed potable. Bacteria doubles in 20 minutes.

I live in a 60ft x 40ft metal building. I catch rainwater from the downspouts. With a good rain, I can collect 400 gallons. The rest of the rain water goes down the ditch.The 55 gallon plastic barrels cost me $10 each. I set the barrels on 2-ft high stands for gravity feed to the gardens. I cut the downspouts off so that the downspout elbow will drain into the barrels. I covered the barrels with old drapery sheers to keep out mosquitoes, and to filter out the trash from the roof. I screwed 1/2 inch ID (Inside Diameter) spigots about 4 inches from the barrel bottoms so that dirt won’t clog the spigots. But they got clogged anyway. The male spigot threads will stick inside the plastic barrel. I screwed 1/2 inch elbows or couplings to the threads to hold the spigot tight. Beside each of the 3 plastic barrels I put a steel 55 gal barrel for overflow. I cut a 4 inch diameter hole toward the top of each plastic barrel, into which I put a 4 inch PVC pipe that overhangs the metal barrels. They leak. But who cares? And the overflow barrels also overflow. I get the water from the overflow barrels by filling 1-gallon plastic milk and orange juice jugs. The BPH in the jugs may be a problem. But I use them anyway. A note about the sheers netting: Your barrel may have a lip at the top. I cut the sheers big enough to lap 4 or 5 inches over the barrel lip. I use bungee cords in the lip to seal the sheer so skeeters can’t get in.

Thank you! This is the first article I’ve watched of yours and I so appreciate how easy and accessible you make this process. Options for all budgets and skill levels. I feel like I’m chatting with my neighbor and she’s showing me how easy it is to collect water and she’s going to show me how I can get started immediately. My favorite way to learn a new skill.

hi Starry, there are a few things about rain water you should know in addition to what you presented here: since you’re in the wind shadow of spokane, and even further – the seattle metro area, your air has a higher concentration of nitrous oxides that convert to various nitrogen compounds when the rain falls. so if you’re going to catch rain water for cooking and drinking it should be run through an active charcoal filter as it comes down the downspout. the other thing you really need to pay attention to to see if your rain water will be safe to drink is to look to the trees. various mosses, lichens and bromeliads should be present. these are indicator species that give clues to health of the air. the presence of these species will also give the water a slight musty taste since their spores and micro particulates are always suspended in the air, which is how they propagate. again, filter and of course the eternal battle of winged neighbors who invariable leave their droppings on the roof… again.. filter.. so an active charcoal filter will cover all of these issues. another issue is keeping your water from turning green. algae are also present in the air and get washed off into the stream and if your catchment barrel(s) or container allows any light in, your water will turn green. i had a 1700gal underground storage tank for my water catchment system…it just had to be plumbed with a small well pump. then as you mentioned there are areas of idaho where rainwater catchment is regulated by the SRBA otherwise known as the snake river basin adjudication where the nez perce tribe has laid claim to most of the water in the snake river drainage, which encompasses most of the state, parts of utah, oregon, and wyoming.