Rain Water Harvesting in Edmonds
What does an award winning green builder do when she not building hi-performance homes? When asked Martha Rose, president of Martha Rose Construction, mentions “I’m just trying to stay ahead of the new building code regulations” and “I have some fun consulting projects that interest me.”
The latest project was working with a client in Edmonds Washington installing two 220-gallon polyethylene tanks that will be used to collect rainwater. The above ground system was relatively easy to install. The two tanks consisted of an over-flow calming device to minimize the flow of incoming water as it enters the tanks; the tanks were joined together with 2″ ABS pipe. The gravity system collects water from the roof of the house through the downspout that feed the rainwater into the tanks, the rest of the application consist of an overflow pipe that empties into a newly created rain-garden, a spigot and hose assembly.
The entire assembly is raised off the ground using 6×6 pressure treated timbers and painted brick red to match the exterior brick of the 1930s house. The Edmonds installation marks the 10th home where they’ve installed rain water catchment systems to a previously built home. This is a common feature in the new hi-performance homes Rose builds. Typically a system like this can reduce the homeowner’s water consumption up 25%.
In addition to lower their water consumption the homeowner has replaced most of their windows and doors with new hi-performance ones and replaced all of their interior lighting with CFL bulbs.
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