Monterey's Rainwater Catchment Specialist

 

 

Rainwater Catchment, as far as Carmel Valley, and Monterey are concerned, is simply catching the rainwater that hits the roof, and storing it for use in the home to flush toilets, fill the washing machine, and irrigation.

This simple feat is performed by diverting your rainwater into a holding tank. In Carmel Valley and the Monterey area, our Mediterranean climate makes this process little trickier. Since it only rains four or five months out of the year, we can only catch the rain during this short season.

Luckily, We get more than enough rain for excellent rainwater catchment, we just need a place to put it all. This means storage, the more the better. The Carmel Valley, Monterey homeowner has pretty much the same problem as Cal-Am, just on a smaller scale. There's plenty of water, we just let it all flow away.

The good news is that we can use the water very efficiently. The water used to flush the toilets gets refilled, providing you with free flushes all winter long.

The numbers are easier than you would think. Most homes are capable of capturing more than 10,000 gallons of water per season. So don't worry about having enough water to collect. There's more than enough water hitting your property. Even during the drought, there's more water than most systems can store. So the one factor that really matters is storage. How much storage makes sense for you. If the water is just being used for flushing, much smaller systems can be used as the fill and refill all winter long. Irrigation water requires larger systems to last through the summer.

The process of rainwater harvesting is straight forward enough. First, the source of the water is examined. The roof, is the place to start. The location of trees and the debris they produce is considered, as is the design of the roof, and of course. The gutter system becomes is important as they channel the water towards the collection point.

Next, the tank site needs to be chosen. It needs to be level and stable, but no pad is necessary for systems if this size.

To really address your water needs, check out our Comprehensive Water Saving Plan.

Comprehensive Water Saving Plan

This approach addresses all the ways you home misuses water. You see all of our home were built the shed water as quickly as possible. This was just considered the “best practice” when the home was built. All the rain/storm is channeled off the property asap, and the same with your usable waste water ie. gray water.

Graywater is the water from the showers and washers. Its safe, great for plants, free, and you make more of it every day. And its a lot of water approximately 7000 gal. Per person every year.

So the your biggest water users are redesigned to save water instead of disposing it.

Your toilet water can’t be reused, but we can fill it with rainwater which is free.

Your washer can be filled with nice clean, soft rainwater and the waste water can be used for irrigation.

Your shower water all goes out to the landscape, providing great savings.

And more irrigation needs can be filled by the rainwater collected in the winter.

This comprehensive approach can cut your water use by 50%