It's been a month now and I still can't stop myself from rushing to the terrace in the morning, after a night of heavy rain.

After several months of seeking ways (unsuccessfully!) to harvest rainwater for our apartment, we had arrived at an elementary solution. Most local experts whose advice and opinion we sought were unable to help. Even the internet tips were of little use since they dealt with individual houses and/or entire apartment buildings.

Though our terrace is fairly large, we realised that the catchment area (the area which directly receives the rainfall and provides water to the harvesting system) is limited to the roof above the terrace room (approximately 120 sq ft). So after a lot of searching and researching, we decided to re-route the pipeline from this area to a rooftop storage tank.

Simple rainwater harvesting structure (pic: author)

Perhaps this is not the most scientific or efficient answer as rainwater should ideally be used to recharge the ground water, but we felt we needed to make a start, and a lot of time (and rain) had already been lost! And I must say it is most fulfilling to be able to use this water for watering plants, washing clothes, cleaning the toilets. It has also helped us on days of water shortage or reduced water supply. We are now more hopeful of finding an efficient and low-cost method to harvest rainwater for the entire apartment building too.

A recent article on Jeff D'Lemos and his keenness to help people conserve rainwater would be useful for others looking for solutions. Other useful links include rainwaterclub and aboutrainwaterharvesting.com.