RAIN WATER IS FREE WATER
Rainwater Landscapes

By Jeff Corcorran
September 2009

Rainwater harvesting will eventually be required in Houston building developments. The cost of water is going up as is the ever increasing demand.

Houston has an abundance of natural clean water falling from the skies every year. The water purveyors estimate that Houston's water usage for landscaping is between 50-60% of the total water supplied. So catching rainwater for use in the landscape will greatly reduce the homeowners dependence on city supplied water.

This use of rainwater for landscaping is a very sustainable way to protect our water supply while improving the green in our landscapes. Rainwater is superior to treated city water for a number of reasons:
1) no chemicals like chlorine to damage roots
2) no heavy metals to affect nutrition
3) acid pH which plants love
4) and IT'S FREE!

So why don't we all catch rainwater and use it for our landscaping?
That's the hard part! It takes lots of water to keep our landscapes healthy through our scorching Houston summers. A typical Houston yard requires between 4,000 and 5,000 gallons of water per month. Considering the droughts we have had, it is advisable to store a months requirement of water to prevent running out. That means a 5,000 gallon tank--not a small tank and very costly, like $10,000!

Okay, so for those of us who can't afford a 5,000 gallon tank--what can we do? The recommendation here is to start off by converting the shrub beds to a drip-watering system. Depending on the size of the beds this can be done by capturing the rain via downspout connections into 55-gallon rain barrels or other rain catchment containers of various sizes. It can be done on the cheap for a few hundred and for the larger and more attractive tanks for a few thousand.

Raintube of Houston is committed to establishing viable solutions for Rainwater Landscapes. The community in Houston is just beginning to see the value of using rainwater for their landscapes and as the price of water increases and the availability decreases there will be a strong desire to utilize the natural water from the heavens.

Resources:
ARCSA - American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association
The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting, Third Edition

For more information, you may contact Jeff Corcorran at jeff@raintubeofhouston.com