We’re grateful that this private weather station located just 2 miles away from our house provides us with lots of useful detailed climate data, much better than what we could do for ourselves. I invite you to take a peek at the data from WeatherCat website which shows the annual rainfall in Santa Cruz ranging from 15 inches to 34 inches annually. The amount of rainfall in Santa Cruz has been highly variable in the last 7 years. Thus, we opted for the 4,995 gallon tank that will allow us to capture larger volume of rainwater during the winter without having to build a special foundation for it. Tanks smaller than 5,000 gallons can simply be placed on a bed of gravel. Above ground rainwater harvesting tanks larger than 5,000 gallons need to be placed on a foundation or platform. The reason why manufacturers sell tanks sized 4,995 gallons (just a shade smaller than 5,000 gallons) is because of the building codes. So why not get a large tank?īut not so large. But when we looked at the cost of installing the system (this includes tank, pipes, filters, fittings, labor, etc.) the cost of the tank is just a fraction of the total system cost. So, we could have installed a much smaller tank, say 600 gallons if we wanted to. We estimate this volume to be around 6,000 ~ 8,500 gallons per year (roughly 500 ~ 700 gallons per month). We’re using the rainwater to flush the toilets and for the cold water laundry. Why did we choose to install a 5,000 gallon tank (technically 4,995 gallons) for our rainwater harvesting system? The short answer is because that’s what made sense for us.
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