Filed under: Original Rainwater Pillow in the Media
Water availability for landscaping continues to be a growing concern for areas where water restrictions can inhibit a homeowner’s ability to maintain a traditional landscape. Last month we talked about designing a drought-resistant garden. Today we’re focusing on collecting rainwater to use for landscaping and possible domestic water applications inside the home.
Though certainly not a new concept—the rain barrel at the corner of the house fulfilled a basic low-tech water storage need—new materials and technology allow for collection of fairly large amounts of water without a lot of investment.
Your home’s roof is an ideal collector—a large flat sloping surface. You’ll need to remove roof debris with either gutter guard systems or a roof washer system. The latter diverts a set amount of roof debris such as leaves or pine needles to a catchment. Once the reservoir is full the remaining water moves directly to storage.
The most intriguing solution of cistern technology is the Original Rainwater Pillow, which can be installed beneath a crawlspace or under a deck in just about any configuration. Unlike structural cisterns, which can be large, involve a fair amount of construction and may cost a lot to ship, these flexible bladders ship flat and are installed easily by fitting and gluing pipes together. The bladder fills using gravity alone, and have a 10 gallon per minute pump attached to deliver water to a spigot for use.
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Filed under: Original Rainwater Pillow in the Media
For customers and builders searching out innovative water-conservation tactics, here’s an innovation: the Rainwater Pillow. The pillow — essentially 10×10 rubber bag or bladder — stores up to 1100 gallons of roof-collected rain water and can feed a drip irrigation system, water grass or wash a car among other things. The Rainwater Pillow is designed to be tucked away in a crawlspace under a house but also performs — and is just as obscured — under a deck or porch. The Rainwater Pillow is low maintenance, according to the company (just clean the filter every so often) and leak-free (testing shows it’ll hold water for 5 years.) And, the more you use it the easier it is to keep clean. Rainwater has a sign that shows local officials you’re using stored water during a drought situation. 1100 gallons of water takes you a long way toward being green — and greening your yard or serving green-conscious clients. The water is pumped to your hose at the same rate as an outdoor spigot and there are larger and custom size pillows available.
http://www.hgtvpro.com/hpro/np_editorpicks/article/0,2623,HPRO_26596_5897572,00.html
