[Greenbuilding] quick tools for calculating rainwater run-off?

[Erin Rasmussen]

The soil is clay, it absorbs water very slowly, so either it is saturated,
and sheets off all the nutrients I just added to it, or it percs slowly into
the ground. I am hoping to collect it temporarily into rain-gardens,
catchment, etc  so I can get it to go where I want it to in winter, and keep
some of it around for the 1/3 of the year when it doesn't rain. 

 

Erin 

 

From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Reuben
Deumling
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 5:03 PM
To: Green Building
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] quick tools for calculating rainwater run-off?

 

I just made up my own spreadsheet calculator. If you know the area of the
roof flattened out (not counting the pitches) you just need to multiply that
area by the inches of rain that fall, and using some conversion figures to
get cubic inches into cubic feet (1728) and cubic feet into gallons (7.48)
you're good to go. 
Beyond the roof area are you saying that your soils don't absorb the rain?
Once its on the ground I don't think capturing and storing it is going to
very rewarding unless you live on some really steep land, which you said you
didn't. What are you planning to do with the water you've collected?

By drainage do you mean something like a drywell?

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Erin Rasmussen <erin at trmiles.com> wrote:

Boy, I've been diligently insulating at my house for the last couple of
weeks, and thinking of you folks for inspiration only to find that in my
absence you've been talking about sending Martha Stewart to outer space. ;-)


 

I live in a low spot, and we've got rainy conditions for 2/3 of the year.
Does anyone have any good cheat sheets for figuring out how much rain water
(in gallons) are coming off my roof, lawn and land? I've got to install some
type of additional drainage system and i'd like to add rainwater catchment -
but I'm not sure what scale I should be looking at.

 

Total roof area is about 1000 square feet (including the garage) and it's
about 0.15 acre but I should calculate for 0.25 acre to include run-off from
the neighbors.  Daily rainfall is typically 0.5-1 inch but it's not unusual
to have 3-4 inches in a 2 day period. 

 

Erin Rasmussen

TR Miles Techical Consultants Inc.

and BioEnergy Discussion Lists

erin at trmiles.com

 


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