Rainwater Harvesting and Green Building
The Water Rhapsody Grand Opus System harvests rainwater from your downpipes and sends this water to a tank of pre-established size and position in your garden. Harvesting your rainwater in Cape Town means that you will be largely off the grid for at least half of the year (or for as long as the rainy season lasts) with regards to water use. Your Water Rhapsody Agent will explain this process to you in depth so that you are able to make an informed decision. In the meantime it is prudent to note that rainwater harvesting systems are already employed in large parts of Europe as means to augment water supply and these systems allow a household to utilise rainwater for everyday usage such as laundry, toilet flushing and bathing. Couple our rainwater harvesting system with a grey water system for irrigation and you will enjoy water savings of up to 90%. Our products are intended to both save money and water and, in the long run, to create sustainable living spaces in and around Cape Town. The article below highlights the kind of serious attention that rainwater harvesting is experiencing in Europe at the moment. In the quest for sustainability water conservation systems at home are paramount:
As the world population soars every major country in the world agrees that water shortages and perhaps higher prices will become a reality. One possible addition to expanding our water resources is the use of rainwater. While not common at all in South Africa, many European countries have begun to test the idea. The results are interesting and encouraging. Several hundred thousand rainwater utilization installations were installed during the nineties in Germany. The installation components have been continually improved and now rainwater utilization is generally recognized as an advanced, ecological and permanently safe operating system. Rainwater utilization has thus developed into an important strategy for effective rainwater management.
The savings of potable water through the use of rainwater amounts to about 50 % of household consumption. Household activities where potable water savings can be achieved through the utilization of rainwater include: -Toilet flushing 33 % -Washing clothes 13 % -Floor Cleaning 2 % -Garden watering 3% .
The quality of the rainwater collected depends directly upon the collection facilities and installation techniques used. Installations that are competently designed, based on technical standards, supply rainwater that can be used for the applications named above without hesitation. Rainwater collected from such installations is, for example, usually of better quality than authorities demand for lakes used for swimming.
Due to the success of using rainwater in Germany, a series of laws and regulations had to be passed to ensure that the potable water system is protected and secure from possible contamination arising from improper house-owners’ installations, including the dangers of a return flow from the rainwater pipe work. There are legally binding regulations for this contained within the German potable water legislation for this, and the General Conditions of Water Supply that, apart from purely garden water storage without refilling equipment, are to be maintained in all cases.
Taken from free drinking water.com
1997 WWF Trust Award won by Water Rhapsody for the initiative shown by founder and inventor Jeremy Taylor in the creation of Water Saving systems that can save you up to 90% on your water bill.