Rain water, how do you collect yours?

[tom.moran]

So the final piece to my water puzzle Is rain water collection, I use a xl dd tarp usually and was hoping to use it to collect rain water while it's up, I'm looking for compact/lightweight ideas to collect 3+ litres of water per day/night. What do you guys do?

 

[copper_head]

You can put a drip line down from the corner of your tarp and down into a container of some sort. I've used a folding bowl in the past for this but its just another thing to carry, works just fine with a water bottle or billy.

 

[tom.moran]

I suppose I could take a large coke bottle rolled up, how fast does it fill?

 

[Mesquite]

Have a look at Waylands rain collector

 

[copper_head]

I suppose I could take a large coke bottle rolled up, how fast does it fill?

Depends on how hard the rain is really, even without a proper dripline I can fill the bowl overnight. Bear in mind if your tarp is quite new the DWR finish on it may taint the water, not had that issue myself though.

 

[Teepee]

Staking one corner higher than the other will cause more water to run to the lower corner. All that is needed to redirect the runoff into a container is a piece of string tied to the tie outs, with the tail sitting above or ideally just in the container.

I find rainwater in the summer months pretty dirty-full of bird droppings, pollution, algae and debris. Also tastes very smoky usually and not the nice single malt smokiness, more akin to brewing up in an ashtray. A good heavy rain though flushes it pretty quickly.

 

[tom.moran]

Ok thanks guys, I'll have to try something out next time I'm out. I'll be filtering the water with ny sawyer mini so it shouldnt matter if it's a bit mucky. I was hoping to be able to use my dirty water bladder as a collector but I haven't been able to work out how it would be possible

 

[Harvestman]

I've had the horrible smoky flavour from tarp-collected rainwater too. Really unpleasant.

 

[Teepee]

Nothing bocks an inline filter quicker than the algae/slime that gets washed off the trees. Decant and skim at the very least before running through the sawyer to save backflushing it in the field if your in the woods.

 

[tom.moran]

I'm going tonight a petrol inline filter before the sawyer to.hopefully avoid any major blockages

 

[Teepee]

I'm going tonight a petrol inline filter before the sawyer to.hopefully avoid any major blockages

It'll get really dirty looking but a bath in Milton or similar and a good backflush sorts the petrol filters right out again. Make sure you don't use one with a little metal ring on the end of the paper cone mate.

 

[cbr6fs]

+1 for rain water being nasty

I'd sooner collect water from a stream and filter myself.

 

[tom.moran]

Problem is where I normally camp there is no running water for miles. Which is why I'm looking at using rain water and filtering it. Surely it's not going to taste too bad once itsbeen through the sawyer

 

[cbr6fs]

Problem is where I normally camp there is no running water for miles. Which is why I'm looking at using rain water and filtering it. Surely it's not going to taste too bad once itsbeen through the sawyer

I can sympathise.

Often have to carry in every single drop of water at this time of year here in Greece, can sometimes plan a route to take in a stream or river but right now most are bone dry.

I use about 3 litres a day, so for a 3 day trip that's 9kg of water

With regards to filtering out taste, that's a tough one.
It's best to think of containments with regards to size rather than type, any chemical or particulate smaller than 0.2 micron will make it through the Sawyer.

Heavy metals, acid rain, even the waterproofing from your tarp are all likely going to be smaller than 0.2 microns.
In context it's unlikely that drinking these nasties once every now and then will do long term harm, but it'll be extremely difficult to remove this without going to extremes like reverse osmosis.

T'other thing is, at this time of year even in sunny England can you really rely on the fact that you are going to get enough rain to last you?

As i say personally i just carry any water with me, it's tough when your hiking long distances over a decent height gain, but having been caught out previously with a water source that was dried up it's the best of a bad situation for me.

If your site if closer to a car park, stream etc then you could get something like the rolling water barrel caravaner's use.

Wouldn't want to be lugging that over rough ground or any great distance, but it might be a option if the site is near a car park or the like.


The other option if it's a permanent site and you have permission is to check to see how high about the water table you are, digging a water well might be a viable option.

 

[backpacker]

So the final piece to my water puzzle Is rain water collection, I use a xl dd tarp usually and was hoping to use it to collect rain water while it's up, I'm looking for compact/lightweight ideas to collect 3+ litres of water per day/night. What do you guys do?

I usually dig a shallow pit and use a polythene sheet laying in the pit put something heavy to hold the sheet down and throw a stone in the middle to get the water to gather and fill up my billy can and give it a good boil! other than that I normally use a 'Millbank Bag' and fill up where ever possible and give the water a good boil never had any problems so far!

 

[TarHeelBrit]

+1 for rain water being nasty

I'd sooner collect water from a stream and filter myself.

+1 on that. On the few occasions I used my tarp to collect rain water it tasted foul I think my new tarp didn't help. I'd sooner chuck a bucket in the Medway and filter/steralize, boil the water.