Essential Rainwater Harvesting: A Guide to Home-Scale System Design - Paperback

by Rob Avis (Author), Michelle Avis (Author)

Secure Your Water Supply with a Custom Rainwater Harvesting System

What You'll Learn

• Water Security and Independence: Harvest and manage rainwater to supplement or replace municipal or well water for your home or property.


• Smart Planning and Conservation: Assess demand, optimize water use, and plan for droughts or extreme rainfall.


• Custom System Design: Determine the right gutters, conveyance, tanks, pumps, and filtration methods for your site.


• Water Quality Management: Pre-filtration, filtration, and disinfection strategies ensure safe, reliable water.


• Step-by-step Installation Guidance: Detailed, practical instructions for DIYers, tradespeople, and sustainability practitioners.


• Maintenance and Longevity: Learn methods to keep your system efficient, reliable, and long-lasting.

Written by Rob and Michelle Avis, engineers and permaculture designers with decades of experience, this guide combines practical know-how, technical rigor, and site-specific strategies for designing rainwater systems anywhere in the world.

Explore the full Sustainable Building Essentials series for illustrated, hands-on guidance on sustainable building systems, high-performance homes, and environmentally responsible construction.

Front Jacket

Design a rainwater harvesting system for any home in any climate.

WATER IS A CRUCIAL RESOURCE increasingly under stress. Yet rainfall, even in arid climates, can make up a sizable portion of any home, acreage, or farm's water requirements if harvested and utilized with care. The key is high-quality site-specific design and sensible maintenance.

Essential Rainwater Harvesting is a comprehensive manual for designing, building, and maintaining water harvesting systems for the warm and cold climates of the world.

Presenting design considerations and approaches for the most common household rainwater supply scenarios -- primary, supplemental, and off-grid supply -- this step-by-step approach covers:

• Planning for full-property water security
• Guidance on navigating regulatory requirements
• Templates for building your own spreadsheet-based calculation tool
• Site-specific planning and spatial layout
• Materials and component design and selection
• System maintenance and upkeep.

Incorporating the latest independent research, this practical resource provides DIYers, trades, and rainwater practitioners with the essential tools, methods, and technical know-how to design, confidently build, and maintain rainwater harvesting systems that produce quality water without necessarily needing end-of-line disinfection or sterilization.

Accurate, precise, and detailed...buy one for yourself and it will be useful for all future generations.
-- Geoff Lawton, Permaculture consultant, designer, and teacher

Go to it! Become a rainwater harvester! Embrace your downpipes and filtration systems! And all the while with this brilliant book stuffed into your back pocket.
-- Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement

A crucial reference for design work. Accessible and quick to reference yet as thorough as one could ever need on the subject.
-- Ben Falk, author, The Resilient Farm and Homestead

A science-based approach that should help get your system set up and educate policymakers with the most recent research.
-- Dave Boehnlein, author, Practical Permaculture

Unique, with all the tools being provided for the calculations and explained clearly as well as fantastic advice on best location, materials selection, and plumbing connections.
-- Rod Wiese, Managing Director and Principal Engineer, Storm Consulting

An essential addition to every home owner's library.
-- Rene Michalak, Governor, Canadian Association for Rainwater Management, Prairie Chapter

Rob Avis, P.Eng and Michelle Avis, P.Eng own and operate Adaptive Habitat, a leadingedge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms and Verge Permaculture, a globally recognized award-winning education business.

New Society's Sustainable Building Essentials Series aims to provide the highest quality information on sustainable building methods and materials. Editors Chris Magwood and Jen Feigin have scoured the world of sustainable building to bring you the techniques and systems that deliver measureable benefits in terms of greater energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. Written by the world's leading sustainable builders, designers, and engineers, these succinct, user-friendly handbooks are indispensable tools for any project.

Back Jacket

Design a rainwater harvesting system for any home in any climate.

WATER IS A CRUCIAL RESOURCE increasingly under stress. Yet rainfall, even in arid climates, can make up a sizable portion of any home, acreage, or farm's water requirements if harvested and utilized with care. The key is high-quality site-specific design and sensible maintenance.

Essential Rainwater Harvesting is a comprehensive manual for designing, building, and maintaining water harvesting systems for the warm and cold climates of the world.

Presenting design considerations and approaches for the most common household rainwater supply scenarios -- primary, supplemental, and off-grid supply -- this step-by-step approach covers:

• Planning for full-property water security
• Guidance on navigating regulatory requirements
• Templates for building your own spreadsheet-based calculation tool
• Site-specific planning and spatial layout
• Materials and component design and selection
• System maintenance and upkeep.

Incorporating the latest independent research, this practical resource provides DIYers, trades, and rainwater practitioners with the essential tools, methods, and technical know-how to design, confidently build, and maintain rainwater harvesting systems that produce quality water without necessarily needing end-of-line disinfection or sterilization.

Accurate, precise, and detailed...buy one for yourself and it will be useful for all future generations.
-- Geoff Lawton, Permaculture consultant, designer, and teacher

Go to it! Become a rainwater harvester! Embrace your downpipes and filtration systems! And all the while with this brilliant book stuffed into your back pocket.
-- Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement

A crucial reference for design work. Accessible and quick to reference yet as thorough as one could ever need on the subject.
-- Ben Falk, author, The Resilient Farm and Homestead

A science-based approach that should help get your system set up and educate policymakers with the most recent research.
-- Dave Boehnlein, author, Practical Permaculture

Unique, with all the tools being provided for the calculations and explained clearly as well as fantastic advice on best location, materials selection, and plumbing connections.
-- Rod Wiese, Managing Director and Principal Engineer, Storm Consulting

An essential addition to every home owner's library.
-- Rene Michalak, Governor, Canadian Association for Rainwater Management, Prairie Chapter

Rob Avis, P.Eng and Michelle Avis, P.Eng own and operate Adaptive Habitat, a leadingedge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms and Verge Permaculture, a globally recognized award-winning education business.

New Society's Sustainable Building Essentials Series aims to provide the highest quality information on sustainable building methods and materials. Editors Chris Magwood and Jen Feigin have scoured the world of sustainable building to bring you the techniques and systems that deliver measureable benefits in terms of greater energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. Written by the world's leading sustainable builders, designers, and engineers, these succinct, user-friendly handbooks are indispensable tools for any project.

Author Biography

Rob Avis, P.Eng and Michelle Avis, P.Eng own and operate Adaptive Habitat, a leading-edge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms. As skilled Professional Engineers with over 20 years of combined experience in project management, ecological design, and sustainable technologies, they offer a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined heat, and power), as well as agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration, onsite wastewater treatment, and rainwater harvesting. In 2008, Rob and Michelle co-founded Verge Permaculture, now an internationally recognized award-winning regenerative education company, earning praise from permaculture leaders including Geoff Lawton, Toby Hemenway, and farming superstar Joel Salatin. They share information at vergepermaculture.ca from their suburban house and yard that they've transformed into a model of cold-climate urban permaculture in Calgary, Alberta.