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Save Money and Mother Earth with the RainReserve System | 09 Oct '08 from the editors

Repurposing our precious resources is a vital part of ensuring smaller bills and a sustainable future. 

A rainwater catchment system is a great way to conserve water and embrace an abundant resource that is often ignored.

Wisconsin-based RainReserve has made the process simple and easy-to-maintain with their unique rain diversion system (shown at left).

The water you collect can be used for countless chores, including watering plants, washing your car, or even industrial cooling.

Read on to find out more about RainReserve in our interview with the company's owner, Omar Galal.

How did the idea for the RainReserve come about?

With the ultimate goal of saving rain water, RainReserve was developed in 2005 by Sustain Dane, a Madison, Wisconsin-based non-profit organization dedicated to creating sustainable communities and promoting environmental responsibility.  Sustain Dane witnessed a swift adoption and great response from the local Wisconsin community and immediately approached Enginuity, LLC to further the venture.  Enginuity, LLC is an environmentally conscious engineering and custom manufacturing company based in Hartville, Mo.  The two companies came together to design, enhance, manufacture and distribute a branded product under the name RainReserve.  The final result was 3 kits: The Basic Diverter Kit, Complete RainReserve System and the Complete RainReserve System (Double Capacity).

Currently RainReserve is one of the only branded products at a high quality and a low price.  An important feature of the product is its sustainability.  Rain Reserve is manufactured and shipped with minimal impact to the environment with a commitment to researching advancements in sustainable materials and developing products that offer increased functionality.  The product design of RainReserve is constantly improved to maximize the benefit to the environment.

Why have a RainReserve kit and a rain barrel instead of just a rain barrel?


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Shipbuilding Technology Brings Hydro Wall Out of the Computer | 06 Nov '07 from Susan Szenasy

Hydro Wall by Virginia San FratelloHydro Wall by Virginia San Fratello

Shipbuilding Technology Brings Hydro Wall Out of the Computer

By Daniela Morell

When Virginia San Fratello won the 2006 Next Generation® Design Competition for her Hydro Wall, she told us that the biggest challenge to realizing the project would be getting it out of the computer. The complex rolling forms of the wall needed to be high functioning—harvesting rainwater to insulate the building and provide useful gray water—and they needed to look gorgeous.

Last week the first Hydro Wall panel emerged from the electronic box into the material world. At 42-inches tall this prototype is one third the scale of the final building. The mold, created in foam through the precision of rhino CAD and CNC milling, makes a finished piece that is a pristine, fiberglass object that requires no hardware or assembly.

 

More at: http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3027

 

Photo: Virginia San Fratello

 

 


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Episode Three: Framing & Roofing | 05 Apr '07 from the editors

Your online guide to the third episode of season one is here. In episode three, Building Green host Kevin Contreras looks for the best, most affordable, green way to support and roof his straw bale dream home. Because Santa Barbara is in California and because California is earthquake country, Kevin needs a good solid post-and-beam structure. In this guide to the third episode, find out why Kevin chooses steel instead of wood for his frame. We'll give you one hint: termites!

Also, find useful links to the experts and products featured on the show ... and, as a bonus, some info. on how you can turn your roof into a garden or a rainwater catchment system, which will allow you to become independent of any other source for water.

Click here for a video all about framing & roofing.


Where does all the water go? | 04 Apr '07 from Richard Heinichen

  • One extra long shower using 5 gallons per minute: 75 gallons
  • Hand-washing dishes throughout the day, water running: 25 gallons
  • Brushing teeth, water running at 2 gallons per minute (don’t forget to floss): 3 gallons
  • Washing hands: 2.5 gallons
  • Flushing toilet: 1.5 gallons to 7 gallons (!) per flush
  • Load of laundry in a top loading washer: 40-50 gallons
  • Dog Water Bowl: 2 quarts per day

Image sxc.hu


Is rainwater safe to drink or bathe in? What about pollutants? | 04 Apr '07 from Richard Heinichen

“Ah, but what about the air the rain falls through?” you ask. “What if it’s polluted?” Well, first off, aren’t you breathing that air? Seems like that should be your first concern. But, yes, rainwater can be contaminated by air pollution that plagues industrial areas, heavily populated cites, agricultural areas where crop dusting is common, and anywhere downwind from any of the sites mentioned above. And even in areas where falling rain is free of these hazards, your rainwater collection surface (i.e.: your roof) may also harbor contaminants like bacteria, molds, algae, bird poop, and squirrel pee. But what exactly do you think is in the raw source of many municipal water supplies? Austin, Texas, for example, taps Town Lake, a veritable stew of urban rubbish, for its water supply.

As for your own personal water supply, when collected rainwater is used solely for watering the yard, no treatment is required. To render rainwater potable, a series of filters and an ultraviolet light will do the trick. And for the truly persnickety or for kidney dialysis, nothing beats reverse osmosis, the same process a lot of those fancy bottled water companies use to turn tap water into “spring” water.

Answer excerpted from Richard Heinicken’s Rainwater Collection For the Mechanically Challenged , available from rainwater.org.