Rain closed play at about 6pm in Redhill on Sunday night. Initally retreating to the shed and then finally indoors, I abandonned the improvised rainwater collection system that both Messrs. Heath and Robinson would have been proud of, and left it to get on with collecting rainwater - as nature intended.
By 7:30pm it was coming down in a persistent drizzle, the sort that makes you either long for a hat, or better still, leaves you wishing you were less folically challenged!
With measuring jug and the second hand of my trusty 5 Euro watch, I measured a litre of fresh rainwater every 45 seconds, or in real terms, 17.5 gallons per hour!
Realising that my little tank was going to be full within minutes, I quickly rigged up a diverter to the main water butt - seen as the white pipe in the picture above. The 208 litre blue plastic barrel waits in readiness, and there are another 3 of those lurking nearby.
The black down pipe only carries the water from the rear roof and extension. The front roof rainwater still goes into the sluice and then into the sewer - not for long though.
I remember as a very small boy, playing with the rainwater that spewed from a downpipe on the new house that dad was building for us in the late 60's, filling up buckets and containers I found on the building site, as fast as I could find them - give me a child at seven and I will show you the man! I also had a small obsession with the diesel cement mixer he had on site, funny how things never change?
Water shortage? Not here there ain't!
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