Long gone are the days, at least here, when there was a 24x7 water supply. In the last 20 years, with water becoming the subject of inter-state fights due to indiscriminate use of natural resources, water tables have receded. Just one of the reason that. But with that, we see on almost every house now, water tanks. Water is collected in sumps [no pressure in the supply, enough to even lift it 10 feet above ground level] and pumped into the overhead water tanks - placed on top of the house. I was up on the first floor terrace looking around. Here are what I saw. You can see 4 tanks above. 3 are easy to spot. Fourth one is visible - only its peak... A little puzzle for you...... All behind the huge billboard. This is a solar water heater. Another solar water heater. A globular water tank... Some people have built in the shape of a small car!! You can see many tiny ones in this shot, but the one big tank is prominent. This is a big apartment block at a long distance. I have zoomed it up. On top are water tanks. Another solar water heater... and if you spotted a Pigeon, your eyesight is good.... another little puzzle....
Many old houses in the States have the remnants of cisterns that were used for the same purpose way before the days of city water supplies. Some in the drought stricken areas of the U.S. and those who are homesteading off the grid, are using their rain water collection barrels as cisterns and connecting the water to supply various uses indoors to cut down on the city water they use.....both to save money and to save water. Solar has not quite become mainstream here yet, many cities have ordinances against them simply for cosmetic reasons which is foolish.
Living in Scotland we rarely need to have any type of container for saving rain water. There's hardly a week goes by without at least light showers. I do remember a year though - way back in October 1975 to August 1976. - when we actually had to conserve water as we had very little rain.
Our water supply is from River Cauvery [Kaveri] which is 20 kms from here. There is a dam built across it, the Krishnaraja Sagar Dam [a very famous tourist place for its gardens and fountains]. The river takes birth in the Western Ghats and has many tributaries, one such is River Kabini. We are slowly getting connected to this one as they want to supply the Cauvery water to the growing capital city of Bengaluru, 90 miles away. It is unable to meet the demand - bursting population and with it, horrible traffic density. If we get good monsoon rains in the season, there will be no water scarcity till next season. If there is deficient rainfall, the dam will not fill and that is when we have to face scarcity. The municipality [now a corporation] has made it mandatory to have rainwater harvesting in all new houses. But it is sad people only show it in their approval plans and not put it to real use. What you see in my pictures are the tanks for drawing water which is actually stored in sumps and pumped up. We too have - without these, life has become impossible! Even 30 years ago, these were not required as we had good pressure in the water supply pipes that could rise to the first floor house and storing water was not a thing one did. Increasing population, demand and I must add 'indiscriminate use' [actually wasteful - many wash their house-fronts and cars with hosepipes!] have created a situation like this. But I actually collect rainwater in all places I can. Will show that in a separate post and link to my blog where I have detailed how I have done.
Found one more image in the archive. See some here and don't miss an interesting one on the house, adjacent to a plastic tank. Picture taken on the outskirts of Mysuru.
We here in Pakistan, specially in Karachi, have always had an overhead, as well as an underground tank. We sometimes experience droughts for as long as 5 years in Karachi! Which is why every house here has an underground water tank too, 2000 gallons being the average size, and the overhead tank is about 800 or so. Water comes in on alternating days, by the flow of gravity, where it is collected in the underground tank. And sometime when water doesn't come, we have no choice but to buy water from the tanker delivery services. So when the tanker arrives, it empties itself into your underground tank, from where you can pump water into the overhead tank. Which is why ever house has a powerful water pump too. Usually a single 3000 gallon tanker supply will last in an average house for about 2 weeks to a month and a half, (depending on the size of your garden)... I however hardly ever bother calling a tanker when the city's water supply runs low, as I already am getting over 30+ liters of water everyday from the air-conditioner's drip line - That I guess is my secret, (which is actually making many neighbors very jealous, yet they still can't figure out where I am getting all this extra water from)... I guess that's one advantage of living so close to the ocean, where humidity is always very high! In other words: "I will not die, I will survive"! http://playit.pk/watch?v=LCZinX209rA
Very interesting, I should say. Those are huge capacities you mention. Nowadays, our locality is being supplied on alternate days, from 3am to about 9am. It is enough to to refill the portion that was drawn up the previous day. For my garden, I use rainwater collected in barrels, unfiltered. Here is my blogpost on how I have done the main system with filters, that goes into the sump. http://mysoreanmusings.blogspot.in/2011/07/rooftop-rainwater-harvesting-how-i-have.html Some people look at this filter system with awe. I know two families that I visited have made separate sumps to collect rooftop rain water [properly filtered] which they use for drinking and cooking. They have made a separate sump for corporation water on which they do not depend. One season's rain will be enough to take them through the full summer! Moreover, they said that it was tasty and food was also tasty while this do not form plaques on the vessels. And, one lady in the family even got cured of her joint pain and dissolved the kidney stone after rainwater consumption that way, in about 10 months.
