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This may sound a little old-school, but catching rain water can save you money. Do you live in an area that receives a lot of rain? If so, are you collecting it? If not, you are literally, and figuratively, letting money go right down the drain.
There various methods for catching rain water and there are several things that it can be used for, that would save you money.
You are probably thinking, catching rain water is easy. Just put out a barrel or bucket and you are set, right? What about mosquitoes? Mosquitoes breed in pooled water sources. So how do you collect the water, but not allow mosquitoes to get into it. Screens and water diversion gutters running into closed tanks can prevent bird droppings and insects from getting into the water.
You can collect rain water in a barrel or a large trash can. You don’t need to be able to carry the container when it is full because you will be removing the water a bucket at a time, when you are ready to use it. If you are resourceful, you can even modify the container to include a hose with a sprayer nozzle. This will make extracting the water a lot easier.
You can use rainwater for the following tasks around the house:
- Flushing the toilet. Do you have a low-flow toilet? That saves some water, but flushing your toilet with rainwater, even periodically, will save a lot more money. There are cases where people have run separate rain water plumbing lines in order to flush the toilets with rainwater only.
- Watering your plants/lawn. This is a perfect use for rainwater. The water is already outside. If you are smart, you will put the collection container near the garden so you don’t have to carry the water very far. Your container will need some sort of hose attachment if you plan on watering your lawn.
- Washing the car. Although the water is not necessarily warm (unless you are washing your car after the water has been sitting for a while during the summer months), you can use rainwater to wash the car.
- Outside Water Fun. Your kids can use the water to fill a kiddie pool, their super soakers, or water balloons.
- Fill Your Pool. If you a REALLY patient, or, your part of the country gets a lot or rain, OR, your contain is VERY large, you can use rain water to fill your pool. This is mentioned ONLY as a possibility, however, it is impractical for typical readers of this blog.
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