Water Collection Techniques

Water collection provides free water for plants.

Watering your landscape can be expensive and wasteful, especially if your budget is tight or your area is in a drought. But these water collection techniques show you how you can tap into the water that's all around you to help you save a resource and keep your plants green without spending green.

Capture rain water. Rain is nature's irrigation, but it doesn't always come when you need it. So, when it does fall, collect it. Your rain water collection system can be very basic - watering cans or pots placed out in the open or at the bottom of gutter downspouts - or it can be more complex, with barrels specifically designed for capturing and storing rainwater.

Today's rainbarrels feature screens to filter out leaves and debris and spigots for getting water out of the tank. Hoses can be hooked up to the barrels to transport water directly to the areas you want to irrigate, but if the destination is on higher ground than the barrel, you'll need a pump. Regardless of how you collect it, use a closed or screened container to store water to avoid mosquitos, which love standing water.

Use grey water. Grey water is wastewater that you generate every day from activities such as bathing, washing dishes or doing laundry. It's not clean enough to drink, but it's safe to use for watering your ornamental plants or irrigating your lawn (or washing your car for that matter).

Like rainwater, grey water collection can be very simple, such as buckets placed in your shower or in sinks to collect water that would otherwise go down the drain. Or you can install a more sophisticated system that diverts water from drain lines and delivers it to your landscape, though not all municipalities allow the siphoning systems. If you do use grey water on your plants, alternate its use with fresh water, such as rainwater, since grey water can contain at least some contaminants, such as detergent or hair.

Harvest air conditioner condensate. Condensation naturally forms on the refrigeration coils of all air conditioners. With central units, the condensation drains away from the unit via a condensation line, which runs to the compressor outside and empties on the ground. With a window unit, it drains directly out of the unit itself and onto the ground or into a water tank inside the unit. Instead of letting this free water drain uselessly to the ground, place a container under the drain line or window unit and collect it.

Air conditioner condensate is not considered potable because of its contact with the refrigeration coils and inner a/c machinery, but it's perfectly safe for irrigation. And the best part is that when you need water most, when temperatures are the highest and your air conditioner runs the most, is when you'll get the most output.

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