Remember that rainwater catchment tank we put in? Well, we needed a roof to catch rain on, so we built one on the ground, using pallets scavenged from the local hardware store and used roofing metal scavenged for free from a local roofing company
(they have to pay to dispose of it, and except for having screw holes in it, it was in great shape). We attached non-perforated 4" flexible polyethylene drain pipe along the bottom edge (slit the pipe open to put it over the edge of the roofing metal and strapped it on with plumber's strapping) and routed it through a filter screen with cleanout access and then down the hill in a smaller (1") polyethylene pipe to the 900 gallon rainwater collection tank. We won't be drinking this water, but will use it on gardens. Is it clean enough for that? Well, sure, except for any concerns about the polyethylene. But, as I understand it, polyethylene is one of the least toxics of the plastics. I think that anything biodegradeable (dead bugs, mouse poop, etc) will be cleaned up by the soil bacteria when we use the water on the gardens.
The picture to left shows our yurt cellar hole. We put a 500 gallon water tank in it for drinking water storage. We'll pump from that up to the kitchen sink with a hand pump. We've poured concrete footers for the 10 yurt pad posts, and installed the posts with temporary bracing. We used a flexible clear hose filled with water as a level to determine how long to cut each post so that they'd all be at the same height for the yurt floor joists.
Here are the yurt floor joists installed.
We used 2" x 6" tongue and groove pine boards for the yurt deck. We screwed each board down to the joists (nearly all of the screws are hidden in the tongue of each board). We then scribed a 16' diameter circle using a string and pencil from the center point, and used the circular saw and generator to cut to line. It came out really nice.
Since we had to wait for our yurt to be made by the Colorado Yurt Company in Montrose, we started building a summer kitchen so that we'd be able to put our little wood cookstove in it to use for cooking. We'd much rather cook with wood than with propane.
(they have to pay to dispose of it, and except for having screw holes in it, it was in great shape). We attached non-perforated 4" flexible polyethylene drain pipe along the bottom edge (slit the pipe open to put it over the edge of the roofing metal and strapped it on with plumber's strapping) and routed it through a filter screen with cleanout access and then down the hill in a smaller (1") polyethylene pipe to the 900 gallon rainwater collection tank. We won't be drinking this water, but will use it on gardens. Is it clean enough for that? Well, sure, except for any concerns about the polyethylene. But, as I understand it, polyethylene is one of the least toxics of the plastics. I think that anything biodegradeable (dead bugs, mouse poop, etc) will be cleaned up by the soil bacteria when we use the water on the gardens.
The picture to left shows our yurt cellar hole. We put a 500 gallon water tank in it for drinking water storage. We'll pump from that up to the kitchen sink with a hand pump. We've poured concrete footers for the 10 yurt pad posts, and installed the posts with temporary bracing. We used a flexible clear hose filled with water as a level to determine how long to cut each post so that they'd all be at the same height for the yurt floor joists.
Here are the yurt floor joists installed.
We used 2" x 6" tongue and groove pine boards for the yurt deck. We screwed each board down to the joists (nearly all of the screws are hidden in the tongue of each board). We then scribed a 16' diameter circle using a string and pencil from the center point, and used the circular saw and generator to cut to line. It came out really nice.
Since we had to wait for our yurt to be made by the Colorado Yurt Company in Montrose, we started building a summer kitchen so that we'd be able to put our little wood cookstove in it to use for cooking. We'd much rather cook with wood than with propane.
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