How to make a First Flush Filter // Rainwater Collection System Part I
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ธ.ค. 2016
- Installing a DIY first flush into your rainwater collection system is easy. With some basic materials, you could be improving the quality of your water by eliminating annoying particulates that would otherwise be clogging up your tank and pipes.
Part II // Improving the First Flush
• Improving the First Fl...
Part III // Modifying the inlet
• Modifying the inlet //...
Part IV // Adding a First Flush Float
• Adding a First Flush F...
Materials needed:
(All these need to be the same size as your household)
1. PVC Drainpipe
2. Plain T PVC Pipe Fitting
3. 90 Degree PVC Pipe Fitting
4. Threaded PVC Access Coupling
5. Threaded PVC Cap w/ O'Ring
6. Non-Pressure PVC Cement (Glue)
www.UrbanSelfSufficiency.com
UrbanSelfSufficiencyAustralia
Music:
Crowd Hammer Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b... #Make #DIY #UrbanSelfSufficiency - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Little things like this are what need to be taught on TH-cam, you see lots of people showing off their systems and letting you watch them dig and place cinder blocks, but it’s the ideas and theory that people need to learn for building their own systems.
A very small hole drilled a few inches above the clean out would keep you from having to drain the system and only require removal of debris
Nice idea
Australians always make simple things that actually work! Thanks!!!
Love your delivery of topic as well as your soothing voice. And no stupid music.
Thank you!
Although, it should be noted, that my most popular video has the most horrendous music obnoxiously playing throughout its entirety 😬... We all regret some choices, right? 😂
Well done! My plan was to build a first flush system the same way and it's great to see it in action elsewhere beforehand. Highly appreciated!
Thank you. To be completely honest, If I had my time again, I'd probably invest in the float mechanism and build the rest myself; or come up with a better homemade solution than the one I did a video on. Just thought I'd share that if you're thinking of doing something similar. Thanks for watching! Jim.
Thanks for demystifying the concept of First Flush and help me save some money too. Ready made commercial products are too expensive!
Good vid.
On the first flush system, make the fill connection to the storage tank with a wye fitting rather than a tee.
I found that larger, heavier debris may not make it off the roof right away in a light rain, only to be rinsed down after the first flush pipe is full. This makes it a straight path to the storage tank.
By using a wye fitting, the debris has to travel up hill for a short distance, where if it's heavier than water it drops back down into the first flush leg
That's a good tip. Thanks.
The heavy debris doesn't bother me much, mostly pine needles, the mozzie net/mesh deals with that.
The first flush setup is mostly to stop dust from the roof flowing in and sludge building up in the tank in my case.
I live rural with a dirt road 100ish m away in a pretty dry area so it is a big problem.
Our rain water collection is our primary source of house water.
The clearer the tank the easier job the filters have.
Very clever and simple.
Thanks for sharing
The length of the sediment collection pipe should be corresponding to the area of your roof. A bigger roof needs a longer pipe. I would advise on installing a tap out of the lower section of the sediment pipe (right before the final 'basket") so you can drain the contaminated water with a hose instead of having 10-20 liters of water splashing on your pants every time you clean it.
See part II... :)
Please can you give the formula to calculate the volume of the collection pipe required based on the roof area?
I found it: Volume of diverted water (liter) = roof lenght (m) x roof width (m) x 0.5 (mm)
Good work, and great presentation. Thanks for posting this!
Michael Wood
Thanks Michael. Maybe glad you got something out of it.
Jim.
Cheers bro, great clip.
Very helpful and clever system. Awesome work!
+Brian Barcinas Thanks Brian.
yeayyy! thankyou for the quick explainations!
Very nice explanation and demonstration. Thanks
Top job!! Loved it!!
+Mike Hurd Thanks Mike.
Excellent explanation. Thanks
I was going to do something similar with a smaller container prior to going into the first cistern, but I like this idea as well. I think I'll do a combination, but I definitely will install a minimum of two of your cleanouts first, and a series of filters; not just one. I will also install a small petcock at the bottom of each barrel to drain anything that may still make it through. While this is for my garden, I also want this as a backup water supply in the event of SHTF.
Thank you...very well explained. (Canada)
Thank you! Clear, concise, excellent diagrams. Much appreciated.
Thank you! This means a lot to me :)
Superb illustrations making the presentation of the concept so easy to understand. Great job! Now I know and understand the principle of 'first flush'.
Awesome, thanks!!!
Yep, this was my favorite part of the video. Wish everyone did this on their tutorials
Very imformative indeed....job well done!
+Laval Bear Thank you.
Fantastic, thank you!
Excellent video. I loved your presentation - you broke this down in a way that is simply beautiful. Thank you!
Lovely comments, thank you.
VERY well explained. THANK YOU
Thank you. That means a lot to me. Jim.
Thanks for the video!
Good information on rain water conservation
Such a great explanation. I am being entrusted by The Black Pearl Network to work on this project in West Papua. This is very helpful. Thanks
Thanks a lot.. a simple and cost effective system.. I'm busy with mine so hence checking out what i can on you tube.. your info very handy
You're welcome. Thank you for watching and the kind words.
Thank you!
Your video is so so informative and easy explained in detail... Fool proof. I immediately subscribed. from South africa
Thank you SO MUCH!
Nice!
Nice video!
Thanks, Jim.
Jim.
Just saw one of these in youtube shorts but he had a hose connected under the silt collection cap. A small section of sponge hose or the type that leaches water to flower beds would allow the lower section to slowly empty itself so you would not need to empty the silt collector after each rainfall.
Awesome thanks ❤
Thanks so much!
Thanks for the great video. I'm going to use that system in a catchment system Im doing in Nusa Penida off of Bali. One question I have is, how would I discard the leaves, bugs and branches that may settle on my catchment area?
Good ideas! No need filter.
It was really good I will definitely install this at my house
Cool. I hope it goes well for you. Take it easy. Jim
👍🏼 thanks
A problem with this design is the the water rush will still create a very muddy mix. I'd suggest a method to slow the water down then a buoyant object to block the water after the flush fills up to allow the rest of the water to divert to the tank.
+smith288 Yep, good advice. I'm not having any issues with that myself but I'm sure that others might; particularly if their water drop is quite long before hitting the flush well or perhaps with torrential rain.
Very informative vid. I'm in the process of building my own rain harvesting system and I had the idea of using a clear 5 gallon water jug as the first flush. 8' of 4" PVC has a volume of 5.2 gallons. Using the water jug lets me see inside, saves space and saves money as you can find empty jugs for free. I picked up 2 empty jugs. I'm just having trouble with fittings and looking for some insight and ideas.
Thanks Yourath!
Have you looked at threaded couplings? There might be something you could use.
Hey great videos - love the simple easy method and cool backing track.... So what do you use to prevent mosquito reproduction in your water system / Tank... I am told in many Australian stages its a legal requirement.
the main tank has a mosquito filter built in. the water coming out of the pipes freefalls through the mosquito filter so all good there.
Great video mate. I am going to get one rainwater drinking system installed as water in Adelaide is so hard.
Yeah, nice. Adding a brita filter or something similar will help with drinking water. My system has a large filter on it before it goes into the house, then under the sink, I have a drinking water filter to make sure all the nasties are removed before ingestion.
Here in Australia people in the outback and elsewhere have surivived with old crappy rainwater system choked up with everything..haha but I will definately have a couple of filters. Thank you for your advice mate.
@@priyadarshidravid6929 Yeah, I know. lol. I'm in Qld. Here, bats shit on my roof and I'm trying not to drink in that Hendra Virus, or COVID, or Mad Cow or anything else they could be carrying! Hahaha.
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Hahaha. BTW since last 10 years I have grown nearly all of my vegetable and fruits, living with minimum carbon foot print.
I think I need to set something like this up, I've noticed since installing my wood heater there's a lot of creosote flakes on my roof from the flue.
Great video, very informative! In addition to a first flush setup, what are your thoughts on filtering the rainwater from a roof with modern asphalt shingles if you wanted to drink it, shower with it, etc.?
To be honest, I know nothing about asphalt shingles; we don't really use them here in Australia, so I don't know enough about them to even make an educated assumption.
I know there are some really good filtration systems out there that I would consider looking into. On my system, we have one filter for all the water going into the house, and another one (finer) under the sink that has a dedicated spout up on the sink that we use for drinking water. That's what I would look into.
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Oh that is a good idea to look into. If anything, I might just buy a tool shed or some other supply storage shed with a tin roof and utilize that for a simple catchment system. Cheers from the US!
Smart
great video! did you put a gutter mess on to get ridge of floating matter? I am going to try a buoyant object to block the water after the flush fills to help with floating matter too. thanks for the help
I have gutter mesh on all my gutters, yes. A buoyant ball or something like that will work well to stop the debris once it fills. I'm going to do that to mine (look out for a video in future) soon, too. Thanks for watching. Jim
If you placed a 90mm valve/gate at the base of the flush you wouldn't need to unscrew the cap and get drenched.
In part II I addressed that with a retrofit :)
You can install a small tap into the cap so as to release the water without getting saturated with manky water... particularly when the water has sat for a few weeks in summer!
See part 2. 😁
We have bought q property with what looks similar to this DIY first flush without the bouyant ball valve. However, our screw cap has a small hole at the bottom. Are we likely to be losing a lot of potential tank water due to the hole?
Potentially. Watch part II to see what I did with the cap. Maybe you can do something similar or replace the cap.
excellent thank you so much. my question is how do you overcome when the tank is full. I know you can leave the bottom open is there a way around it?
tanks come with a hole for an overflow pipe. you can pipe this into an existing soakwell or drain. but very importantly, the exit pipe must be capable of the same amount of outgoing water as incoming so it should never overflow out the very top.
@@Fanta.... thank you so much. I built a system like yours. But i do open the bottom and let the water run through the drainage pipe.
i added a cheap float device in my flush so that when it floats to the top of the flush system it cuts off any further water from going down the flush and keeps the dirty water from coming back up.
Same. I think I show that in part 3. But yeah, it's a good idea. Thanks for sharing, Rob!
so why don't you use the ball in the well like others do? thanks much.
Part two 😁
Won't the dirt just float back up and into the rain barrel once the 'Flush system' is full?
Hey Miguel, not really, no; the dirt is heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the chamber. Thanks for watching. Jim
First flush (dirty roof wash) is denser than the fresher rainwater. As such, it quickly settles to the bottom of the diverter. If you drain a fixed quantity first flush diverter, the initial water will smell but as the water column drains, the water quality will improve substantially. First flush diverters with drippers can easily lose 4-6 litres per hour.
I think the turbulence in the pipe would let stuff flow throw. Dried bird poop might float out. I think it will work to some extent, some sort of simple filter would work as good.
Problem with this is that the drain pipe will always fill up so subsequently all the water coming after the drain has filled up will just drain into the tank regardless of the drain this is becouse water will always rush into the inlet pipe
Where is the ball and why you don't need it ?
Get a tank with a drain in the bottom. Every time you open the valve, it gets flushed.
We have 5000 gallons of rain water in our system. I'm posting videos of the system build now.
What happens when
gets full
Then the water goes into the water collection barrel.
But won't the dirt just float back up and into the barrel?
I see two problems with this system right away. THis is not a true First Flush system because there is nothing inside of it to prevent any floating debris from coming back out of the well area and going back into your storage tanks. Secondly, the First Flush systems are designed to leak water out the bottom of the well area slowly so the tank can drain between rain showers on its own. If the tank does not empty and the next rain comes the water from the roof then bypasses the system altogether and goes straight in your storage tank.
When I built my system I used multiple 4 inch PVC pipes as the well area so that I can collect the first 40 gallons before the water goes to my storage tanks. At the top of my First Flush system, I used a 4" to 3" adapter. Inside the main 4" pipe I placed a white plastic Whiffle Ball which floats on the water and as the water in the tubes rise goes up the 4" pipe and then gets stopped by the 3" adapter sealing the dirty water below and diverting the now clean water to my storage tanks. At the bottom of the 4" pipes, I used threaded plugs that do NOT have an o-ring and I do not have tightened all the way up. This way the water can slowly leak out to reset the system after the rain stops.
The parts 2 and 3 of this series address both of those issues.
It's good advice though. Thank you for taking the time to write such detailed information; it's very much appreciated to have such thorough sharing of ideas and learnings.
Jim
winter?
I need more context, sorry? It's been awhile since I made this video.
Just so you know, we don't call it a plain T👍😂🇺🇸
So no need for a float ball then huh?
Part ii