Getting Started -- Existing Conditions and Objectives

I will outline here what my objectives are.  As I progress with my system I will post the progress. I encourage any and all with questions or ideas on how to improve my system or how their system is progressing to let me know.

This Blog will be dealing with water conservation and the construction of a Rainwater Catchment System to augment the municipal water supply that is used at my residence.  I am primarily interested in getting irrigation to the plants in my yard.  I may try to generate potable water at some later date.  We are anticipating a drought out here in Northern California this year and the municipal water district is discussing the imposition of mandatory water rationing.

I have already started building my system. I should have started with the blog before I did anything, but who knew it was going to get so interesting.

By way of introduction, the lot is about 48,000 sq. ft. in size.  The house has a footprint of about 3,200 sq. ft.  The asphalt driveway is about 2,000 sq. ft.  There are about 11,000 sq. ft of irrigated landscape, with about 1,000 sq. ft. of that being a lawn. About 5,000 sq. ft. of the unirrigated portion of the lot is landscaped with low water or no water landscaping.  There are a number of very large pine trees on the lot in the unirrigated portion.

I have a slot drain at the bottom of the driveway from which I can capture any water that flows down most of the driveway.  I have gutters and downspouts on the house that were draining into a drainpipe going to the street.  I have placed a valve in that drainpipe and have now diverted about half the water coming off the roof to another drainpipe that will go to the rainwater storage system.

I have found some YouTube videos that might be helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Rubm0tU4U
last modified 8/16/2014