Idea for water collection technology / business

[Matt P]

Any engineers or similarly-minded folks in the house?!

I've been rolling an idea around in my head for a couple years about starting a new business. I'll just go ahead and throw it out there because I really don't care if it's ME that does it or someone else. I would pay for this service right now if someone else did it and I bet millions of others would, too. But I'm having a couple snags about how it might work.

So, I collect rain water off a 9'X12' greenhouse, contain it in a 50 gallon food grade plastic barrel right next to the greenhouse and then carry it inside to filter it in a Berkey for all our household water consumption. For 2 years this system has provided all cooking and drinking water for a family of 4 (and water is ALL we drink) and the only time the barrel went dry was when I accidentally left it running one time. So, it's been a wonderful system and could easily be expanded for a drier climate (I don't even keep most of the water that hits the greenhouse).

Buuuuut, I would like to make it easier and possibly turn this into a business to market to others. Right now, the water collection is one system, the filter is another system and then I fill and keep the filtered water in separate containers in the house for use. It's a little bit of every day attention and a minor eye sore. I would like to eliminate the 3 stages to make this one simple system where water falls on the roof, runs into a collection container inside the house (or on the side or in the attic?) and then move through a filtration system into a finished water container that feeds the water directly to a faucet into my kitchen. In other words, one all-encompassing system that is hidden, simple and easy to maintain. I mean, I don't mind all the labor I have to provide to get the water through my system but to market such an idea to a wider audience I recognize it would have to be streamlined and idiot proof.

Sound simple? Well, maybe for a better mind, which is why I'm here! ;)

I have many conflicting ideas about how best to do some of the stages. First, to get the water off the roof into the first storage container without debris or the chemicals from asphalt shingles. I have many ideas but none I'm doing backflips over.

Then there is keeping the first stage container free of algae or debris that may get through the pre-filter and be easy to get to for cleaning and maintenance (depending on where it will need to be located in or out of the home. Inside wouldn't be an algae issue but outside containers might need a container blanket that is reversible to black in the cold months, white or reflective in the warm months--which is what I do now. Sunlight cannot hit the water or algae thrives).

Filters need to be cleaned occasionally and it's easy to do with a counter top Berkey because you just unscrew the filter canisters, rinse them off and put them back in. If those filters are in a system at the height of your home's exterior or in the attic, it would be a little different getting to them simply. So, some means of keeping your filters clean...

Another relatively minor issue I have is keeping the collection barrel faucet/lines from freezing in the cold. Currently I hang a normal work light--the kind with a hook on top-- directly from the faucet and it has never frozen but there would need to be a safer and more effective way to keep the lines from freezing if the collection barrel was in the attic or mounted on the upper outside of the home. Perhaps a small solar panel to power a heated cord or just hard wire an electrical heating element into the system?? I really wanted this to be gravity-fed energy-free operation, though.

After these issues are resolved, I think it would be relatively easy to install the pipe from the final filtered water container to a faucet right in the wall of the kitchen. And, bingo, filtered rain water from your own roof to your own kitchen with no lugging water jugs around and, most importantly, no fluoride, chlorine, pharmaceuticals or many other chemicals found in municipal water or contaminated wells. I believe if this could be made into a simple, low maintenance system, it is something that would be a wonderful business opportunity in this age of increasingly contaminated fresh and tap water.

Oh, and one issue might be dealing with the state and federal governments, since they are beginning to frown upon citizens' rights to collect and use their own water.

If this strikes a chord with anyone and you'd care to comment, please feel free. Any input would be welcome. If you're an engineer type and want to take it to another level, feel free to contact me privately and we can discuss in person. I'm not an engineer, just a craftsman that likes to make things and work towards sustainability. Pretty sure my phone number is on my personal page here at PA (I will check when done). If you're even crazier, like me, and think this would be a fun business and want to be involved, hey, the more the merrier. I'm open to all ideas! But think for a second if such a simple system could be created and then scaled up to any size use, imagine all the opportunities for homes or businesses to collect and use what might be among the highest quality water around, falling right on their rooftops.

Thanks for any who give it their consideration!

Matt

[yelik]

As with all ideas the first step is to research what is already available to avoid reinventing the wheel as it were. From a quick Google search numerous rainwater harvesting systems already exist, although they don't look too cheap when installing tanks underground. You can drink rainwater providing its properly filtered and treated with UV.

http://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/rainwater-harvesting/

If your idea has benefits over existing products then you'd need to build and test full working prototype to perfect the design. It might be possible to patent the idea although this is often a waste of time for individuals because trying to protect against infringement from a large company would send most people broke before you even got near a court.

Your options would be to:-

Keep it too yourself
Exploit it yourself, but marketing can be quite costly
Collaborate with a small local firm you can trust
license out the manufacturing and distribution
Sell any patent

I think the idea has merit especially if the cabal start to go even more off the rails and try out one of their EMP weapons to take everyone of the grid

[Matt P]

Thanks Yelik. I've seen a lot of rainwater harvesting systems but nothing like what I'm describing above. I grew up with a cistern but all those and wells require a pump and they are separated from the home. Cleaning the cistern was always a problem, too, and we had to put chemicals in the tank to maintain it. Also looking for a visual improvement from seeing the tank(s) and/or gutters into it.

Matt

[PurpleLama]

You can drill holes and install Berkley filters into any kind of containers. I'm thinking two steel drums stacked one on top of the other. You would need some kind of sight glass to know when to cut off the water supply to the top barrel in case of torrential downpour. Also, the more filters installed, the faster the water will pass, and in a large drum you could easily fit eight or ten. You could then run the water off into smaller food grade containers for refrigeration. Provided the water going in is screened, and the bottom container is sterile at the start, you shouldn't have to clean it too often.

[Lifebringer]

Have you thought of combined tech for back-up self sustaining filtration, usiing aquarium pumps cotton balls charcoal recycle system? I'm about to do a watermelon field with a dozen or so wcb's/water capture barrels, back-up pump retention pond filtration over natural sand pebble swift running water, powered by a solar array, and possible vertical wind turbine. I was wondering if the solar array could turn a waterwheel for power also, but there's lots to think about, but always have a back up, such as your gravity idea. Oops, jjust remembered, I have one still going on my "elephant ears by the barbeque area. Gotta go turn the hose back inside the barrel for a stop flow.

[21g]

This company blurb seems pretty close, i think, to what you are describing, Matt ?

http://www.iforerainwaterharvesting.co.uk/

[Matt P]

This company blurb seems pretty close, i think, to what you are describing, Matt ?

http://www.iforerainwaterharvesting.co.uk/

You're right 21g. That is getting closer to what I am thinking (and a similar idea to one of mine for initial water collection and routing, and it is a wonderful system but from what I've gathered that isn't producing drinkable water. I suppose if you weren't getting any water off asphalt shingles you could pour that water into a filter and then into storage but it still only covers the first part of a 3 part system. I want one to collect and store, then filter, then store for point of use, all without my labor input.
I so love to see these types of companies popping up. We're witnessing the future.
Many thanks for sharing!

Matt

[DarMar]

You should try avoid any plastic-metal thingies as much as possible.. filters can filter minerals also.
Best to learn from nature :)

Rhizofiltration is a form of phytoremediation that involves filtering water through a mass of roots to remove toxic substances or excess nutrients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizofiltration

water should come from underground not collected from atmosphere because many toxic chemical wastes.. earth and tree roots are natural way of cleaning and mineralising water.
If not gifted by nearby natural well, you can try producing own.

Also through history we are shown manipulating nature is not best way.
I simply always choose to live where natural wells are.

[kat]

This is from Mike Adams, Natural News:

I've identified a breakthrough countertop water filtration system that I think you need to know about. It's not out yet, but I got my hands on a prototype and tested it in my lab for its ability to remove heavy metals and elements with radioactive isotopes (such as Cesium-137).

I've done a lot of testing of various off-the-shelf water filters, and I've identified three that work very well (including the Big Berkey). But they all suffer from the challenge of being very slow. They're gravity filters, and they can take hours to filter a couple of gallons of water.

The AquaTru water purifier that's about to be released purifies water rapidly, using a fascinating countertop reverse osmosis technology that also removes toxic elements down to single-digit parts per billion levels. It's blazing fast because it benefits from a small, silent pump that pushes the water though a four-stage filtration process with sufficient pressure to speed the entire process.

Remarkably, the AquaTru system doesn't require any plumbing at all. You simply add water into a removable tap water reservoir, place it on the machine and it filters the water automatically, producing ultra-clean water in a BPA-free receptacle (with its own dispenser) that you can detach and put into the refrigerator, if you want, to chill the water.

The system removes 128 toxic chemicals and heavy metals from your water, including most of the fluoride found in city water. I don't yet have the exact fluoride removal testing numbers because I'm waiting for our Ion Chromatography instrument to come online. Once that's up and running, we'll be able to confirm the fluoride removal for all water filters with scientific accuracy.

Here's the removal percentages of the AquaTru system for toxic elements, as documented via ICP-MS instrumentation in my own lab:

Aluminum reduction = 92.99%
Copper reduction = 99.79%
Arsenic reduction = 99.90%
Strontium reduction = 98.80%
Cadmium reduction = 100.00%
Cesium reduction = 100.00%
Mercury reduction = 100.00%
Lead reduction = 99.90%
Uranium reduction = 100.00%

The AquaTru water filter system is so new that it's currently in pre-production. The tooling is being completed and units will be shipped to all pre-order customers before year's end.

CONSERVES water instead of WASTING it

Another important benefit of the AquaTru system is its remarkable ability to conserve water. Unlike other RO systems that waste more water than they produce, the AquaTru system uses a patent-pending water conservation technology that is around four times more efficient than professionally installed under-the-sink RO systems.

The result is LESS water wasted (by far), and MORE fresh water to drink.

While it's saving you money on your water bill, it's also saving you a small fortune compared to buying bottled water! Did you know that bottled water costs more per gallon than gasoline? Did you also know that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle water bottling operations all run on TAP WATER that's merely filtered and "polished" before it's bottled into plastic?

Now you can make your own better-than-bottled water for just pennies a gallon. Even better, you avoid consuming and throwing away all those BPA plastic bottles that end up in landfill or worse polluting our water ways. And did you know you could power 1 million cars for a full year with the petroleum used to make those plastic bottles? And that’s before trucking the water all over the country to your local store or home delivery. Besides, do you really want to hand your money over to corporations like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle?

No matter how you look at it, it just makes more sense to purify your own water. It's less expensive, more environmentally sound, and it produces a better quality water when you're using technology like AquaTru.

One note about AquaTru: It uses a small amount of electricity (about $2.00 a year for the average family of four), meaning it's not an off-grid water filter. For emergencies you could run it off a single solar panel but I still suggest you own a non-electric gravity filter like the Big Berkey for emergency use. But for routine use to quickly produce the water you need day to day, the AquaTru system is the perfect combination of speed, filtration effectiveness and affordability.


MY NEW FIRST CHOICE FOR HOME WATER FILTRATION

AquaTru is the home water filtration system I'll be using from here forward! I've placed my own pre-order for the system, and I'll be using it for everyday drinking water, cooking water and water for my pets. (Your dogs and cats deserve clean water too...)

No matter how the water quality provided by your local city keeps plunging, you can always make your own better-than-bottled water in your own kitchen using the AquaTru system:

- No plumbing required.
- Filters out heavy metals, fluoride and toxic elements.
- Conserves water compared to traditional RO systems.
- Filters water FAST.
- Is virtually silent.
- Removes pharmaceuticals, chlorine, pesticides, fluoride, bacteria and much more...

One more benefit: Every pre-order of the AquaTru results in a small but significant donation to our Consumer Wellness Center non-profit, which donates food grow systems to schools across America. (In the first wave, we donated 250 such systems. A second wave of donations is already gearing up with a new, improved Food Rising grow system that I'll reveal soon...)

So by helping yourself enjoy ultra-purified water, you're also helping us teach children how to grow food from seeds and save those seeds to plant the next generation of food. It's one of the many projects I feel really passionate about, and it's why I continue to invent new food production technologies to share with those who are ready to learn.

Thank you for your support! And I look forward to us both enjoying ultra-clean water for years to come thanks to the AquaTru system.

https://www.aquatruwater.com/?aid=16873
- Mike Adams, the Health Ranger