Essential Rainwater Harvesting: A Guide to Home-Scale System Design

by Rob Avis, Michelle Avis

Design a rainwater harvesting system for any home in any climate. Water is a crucial resource increasingly under stress. Yet rainfall, even in arid climates, can make up a sizable portion of any home, acreage, or farm's water requirements if harvested and utilized with care. The key is appropriate planning and high-quality site- and climate-specific design. Essential Rainwater Harvesting is a comprehensive manual for designing, building, and maintaining water harvesting systems for the warm and cold climates of the world. Presenting design considerations and approaches for the most common household rainwater supply scenarios – primary, supplemental, and off-grid supply – this step-by-step approach This practical resource provides DIYers, trades, and rainwater practitioners with the essential tools, methods, and technical know-how to design, build, and maintain rainwater harvesting systems anywhere. Rob Avis, P.Eng and Michelle Avis, P.Eng own and operate Adaptive Habitat, a leading edge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms and Verge Permaculture, a globally recognized award-winning education business. They have over 20 years of combined experience in project management, ecological design, and sustainable technologies, which they share at vergepermaculture.ca from their suburban house and yard that they've transformed into a model of cold climate urban permaculture in Calgary, Alberta.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

172 pages, Paperback

Published December 11, 2018

About the author

With over 15 years of combined experience in engineering, project management, ecological design and sustainable technologies, Rob co-owns Adaptive Habitat – a unique and leading edge property design and management company in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

As a skilled Professional Engineer, he offers a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined heat & power), as well as rainwater harvesting, agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration and onsite wastewater treatment / septic design.

His extensive project management experience includes site analysis, technical design, cost estimating and scheduling, through to commissioning and construction.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta, interned at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark, and co-founded Verge Permaculture in 2008, now an internationally-recognized & award-winning regenerative design, consulting, and education centre.

Reviews

[Ben Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and easy to read; equipped with all the essential information needed to design rainwater harvesting systems at the home scale. The authors did an excellent job of de-mystifying and explaining in simple terms a system that was previously hard to understand for me.

With this book in my toolkit I would feel very confident in designing rainwater harvesting systems for myself or interested family and friends!

[Shabnam O Cleirigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't recommend this book enough! I am planning a rainwater-harvesting set-up for my home here in Sweden and have found exactly everything I need in this book, from the overarching principles of rainwater-harvesting right down to the nitty-gritty need-to-know details in building and maintaining the necessary apparatus for rainwater-harvesting. After allot of research, and searching far and wide on the net on the subject of rainwater-harvesting, I'm thrilled to have come across this little gem of a book!

[Jenje · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other reviewers have stated, this book is very well researched and does a great job of breaking down each component of the system into easily digestible chucks. It is rare to find both technical expertise and the ability to be able to present to a layman AND to not be condescending.

But I also wanted to give a HUGE shout-out to Nate Drury who was the narrator of the audiobook. A lesser narrator would have done the practical thing and just tell you to reference the accompanying pdf when it comes to flowcharts and data examples, but no - not our dear Sir Nate. I have never had someone describe an Excel workbook full of spreadsheets to me before and it was - AMAZING.

[Andrea Rocchio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential Rainwater Harvesting is the most holistic and actionable resource on rainwater harvesting that I have encountered. This book covers all the elements of a well-designed rainwater harvesting system in a succinct and easy-to-read format. Using their engineering and permaculture expertise, Rob and Michelle have created an easy-to-follow guide walking the reader through the design process. The powerful spreadsheet tool allows users to confidently build a custom system for their specific needs. This book is an excellent resource for professionals and novices alike.

[Tim Mather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book with lots of details and examples of how to design and calculate the water use for Rainwater collection from a roof space. What might be useful is a simple top 5 steps to plan the process of rain water collection and then map these to the chapters in the book. Also I really like some of the examples of the details around the location of the water coming into the tank and the water being taken out and the details around why this is very important. Excellent details on the calculations needed for determining the solution metrics.

[Dusty Eddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great guide for getting to the point and giving actionable steps to designing and building your own rainwater harvesting system. I especially appreciate the included caveats and nuances that are necessary to consider when designing such systems. Not dry at all (pun intended), and resources are given to expand further knowledge where it was not reasonable to fit into one concise book. Highly recommended.

[Joost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, may be used as a reference in the future.

[MBybee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good detail, good examples. Overall well-written.

[Clivemichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent guide, well illustrated and presented

[Shawn Jorgenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you know nothing about rainwater harvesting, this is your book. I knew nothing about the topic and this book gave me all I needed to know about getting started and where to go next.

[Donna Balzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

When my husband saw this book on my bedside table he grabbed it right away. Like Rob, my husband is an engineer and he has been waiting for this kind of detail to get published.

Are you inspired to save your own rainwater for garden and home? Essential RWH is bursting with personal, practical and precise information to get gardeners saving water right now. In this comprehensive look at a complex subject I discovered everyone benefits from a little extra water sense so dive in now and start saving water today.