Our system is a little more complicated overall, but the rainwater-to-toilet part is exactly that. Because it’s not linked to the mains water, backflow etc isn’t an issue.
I should mention that before we got the whole system in place, at the start of the drought we still flushed our toilets with greywater. By the simple expedient of placing a bucket in the shower to catch runoff and filling the cistern with that, as well as the water from baths.
Right, I guess that’s what I meant when I wrote that our own infrastructure will eventually struggle to meet the needs of the population already here. But to be more specific, you’re quite correct: erratic precipitation and record heat will torch large swaths of this country all the same.
Yikes! Washing clothes with bird-poop run-off? the only thing I see rain barrels good for is watering gardens and flushing toilets. While places like UK might have once-a-decade temporary water shortages, and people may want to keep their prize rose garden alive through a month or two of drought - in more desert areas like Vegas, I assume part of the problem would be people filling their greywater systems by simply letting the sink run if they cared more about their nice garden than the collective good.
Plus, unless you have cooperative land contours, your grey-water system probably needs a pump system to feed things like toilet tanks. In areas where such systems can freeze on a regular basis, the arrangement needs to be more complex. Of course, when things are freezing solid, watering the garden is less of a concern. Plus, modern toilets are designed to use a lot less water for the same effect. (MY toilets, for example, will only do a small flush unless you hold the handle down during the full flush).
“Venice is sinking” - their problem was less climate change than the heavy industry in Mestre across the lagoon drawing down the underwater aquifers and causing settling. This was recognized in the 80’s and since the groundwater use was stopped, Venice no longer is sinking . However, there’s no indication it may rebound from what I’ve read.
There’s an interesting debate how much one can attribute the “caravans” from Central America that have been in the news - is it climate change or politics and human rights or just poverty? it seems to be a combination of all of those; and then you can debate how much climate change affects hurricanes, given that the last year’s extreme hurricane season followed a long stretch of very quiet hurricane seasons. I would suggest the migration flood in the Mediterranean probably is equally likely partly a result of climate change in south-Sahara Africa, If we’re talking global warming, the equator where you’d expect extreme heat goes through Ecuador (odd name) and the Amazon, not central America.
The alarm has been sounding for decades that the huge draw on the midwest aquifers in the USA means that soon there will be no water reserve for large areas of the southwest. There is no doubt the Colorado and other southwest rivers are heavily diminished by water use. California seems to cycle between drought and excess rains.
Do you think the rainwater just goes straight from the gutter to the tank?
Where do you live? I thought that it’s pretty difficult to store enough rainwater for very long before all kinds of microbes start to multiply in it. Do you disinfect? My guess is that you don’t live in Vegas.
Maybe you could describe how it works. What happens to the rainwater before it enters the tank?
The simplest thing is a little diverter in the downspout that dumps the first quart or so of water before allowing the rest into the barrel. I think they do have to be reset after each rain, but then it’s ready and waiting.
It passes through a set of filters - a screen and some sort of sand+charcoal thing that needs replacing every year or so.
Cape Town.
There’s probably all kinds of microbes in it, which is why we don’t drink it.
Why would we need to disinfect it? It’s either flushing our waste or engaging with soap and the water heater in the washing machine.
They are almost certainly pristine. When water freezes on a surface like that (here, in layers starting from a small icicle), it does a very good job at rejecting contaminants. In fact the icicle may well be a single crystal, or at least close to it. Cut off the end near the eave, rinse off the bird-poop-water that was dripping over it, and what’s left is probably purer than what comes out of of the faucet.
You might want to disinfect stored rainwater coming into your home because that water comes in contact with you and your family. Pathogens from bird shit (or worse) from the roof collection system could multiply in the storage system. A quick rinse won’t keep these contaminants out of your system. Soap and warm water from the water heater can be a hospitable environment for both viral and bacterial pathogens, especially in the washing machine. Be careful.
Hot water and soap are how you kill pathogens, not create a hospitable environment. Sorry, I don’t share your paranoiac stance on ubiquitous pathogens.
Unless you have unusually (by US standards) hot washing temperatures, the heat and soap are primarily there to remove stuff, not to kill anything.
This explains the in-home dehumidifier comment. We run a humidifier in NM. The dew point in Las Vegas rarely goes above freezing.
60 degrees? For cottons, that is. That may not be intended to kill anything, but it will do the job. Well, what sunlight and/or tumble-drying and steam ironing afterwards doesn’t.
Suffice to say, I have absolutely zero concerns about avigene roof germs in my clothing.
I don’t believe I made such a comment, are you talking about the WFA machine? Dehumidifying isn’t its purpose, if that was a concern I’d just never use the tumble dryer…/
The US Department of Energy recommends 49 C (120 F). 60 C will in fact reach 7-log lethality after about 12 min.
ETA in food. I’m just guessing textiles are similar.
The WFA machine is a dehumidifier.
I just checked our standard setting and yes, it is 60 °C. Our machine also has a 95 °C setting, but I’ve certainly never used that. Seems like a recipe for mild burns if you’re not careful…
Only technically. Dehumidifying isn’t its purpose. Like my LED TV heats the room a bit, but I don’t call it a space heater.
Not only technically. Dehumidifiers take in moist air and output dry air and water. They do so via cooling, sorbents, pressurization (not practical for home scale), or some combination of the above. In this case, we’re talking about a specialized dehumidifier that is designed to keep the water output stream potable.
The technology is more efficient with higher humidity. And is less practical in an environment so dry that people are often adding interior humidity.
An update on Lake Mead: