How Much Rainwater Do You Need to Harvest for Your Off Grid Homestead?

Searching for Information on How Much Water You Need
to Harvest Rainwater for Your Off Grid Shed, Cabin or Home?

Off Grid Living – How to Install Rain Barrel Cisterns to Collect Rainwater and Store It to Provide Water

How Much Rainwater Do You Need to Harvest for Your Off Grid Homestead?

Living Off Grid News – Water is the #2 financial budget line item that people think about after the costs associated with building a shed, cabin, home or other type of shelter.

Please click on the links below that will take you to our Off Grid Home Facebook Group where we have hundreds of photo albums. If you scroll through the photos, there are comments to read, articles to review, videos to watch and photos that should give you some good ideas on what is possible and what topics you might like to research a little bit more and eventually include on your own off grid homestead.

How to Build a Rainwater Collection System

If harvesting rainwater is legal in the state where you live, then you should definitely give it a try before you actually need water. Even people that live in suburban areas should give a try to water lawns, flowerbeds and gardens. It’s always nice to know that should your city water become tainted like Flint, Michigan, or, should a nearby oil & gas hydraulic fracking operation cause a natural disaster to destroy your water table and well water, you have a backup plan already in place.

There are literally a million ways to build and manage rainwater collection systems, which depend largely on how big the system is, the volume of water held and what type of water management pumping system you plan to use to move water around to where you need it. Being a solar advocate, my system uses solar water pumps, sump pumps and even solar purification systems to sterilize and purify my water to make sure its safe to use for cooking, cleaning and washing.

How to Drill a Water Well with a Garden Hose

Water is one of the most important resources for an off grid property is constant supply of fresh water. When checking on prices to drill a well, the costs can be pretty expensive depending on where the usable water table surface lies. The good news is that in some areas, your can actually use a garden hose, water power kit from Home Depot or Lowe’s to drill your own well. Read the stories and watch the videos to see the step-by-step process of how they did it.

How to Build a Pond/Lake to Raise Fish and Store Fresh Water

One of the coolest things I learned while doing research for my own off grid property was learning how to build my own combination of a stock tank and a natural swimming pool, which utilizes aquatic plants to naturally filter the water so that is almost as clear as regular swimming pool, but without using any harsh chemicals. The result is a swimming pool that is clean enough to see the fish that you’re raising in tandem with an aquaponic garden.

In fact, building a natural swimming pool surrounded by a carefully manicured aquatic landscape is not only beautiful, it can be engineered to promote active breeding of a whole zoo of wildlife that will come to drink, seek shelter and even feed on the residents living in harmony in the pond and on its shores. The fish, ducks and geese usually will muck up a pond, but using an aquaponics garden to filter the water provides valuable and free organic fertilizer. A duck island in the middle with a swim through trap door keeps all waterfowl protected from the local coyotes and the growing wolf population.

And most wildlife agencies will help you stock the pond, learn how to manage it properly and even come out once every 5 year and do a fish population census to see if your wildlife management plan is going according to schedule. If your pond is in a migratory bird path you may even qualify for grants to support proper wildlife management strategies.