At our basecamp we are extremely dependent on rainwater. We use it for just about anything: washing dishes, showering, watering plants, cleaning our compost buckets and also for drinking! Before we can drink this rainwater we first filter it with Berkey rainwater filter. We currently have a capacity to store 2000 l of rainwater in two IBC totes. Each IBC tote has two water outlets. One outlet goes to our kitchen tap inside the communal space. Two water outlets are used to connect the two IBC totes to evenly distribute the heavy weight over the wooden structure underneath. The last outlet is used as an overflow point where excess water can flow into our pond. For this we use a transparent hose that also acts as our water meter. Here we can see the exact amount of water since this is not visible on the totes because of the plastic covers. These black covers act as a sunlight barrier, stopping UV from reaching the water and turning it green with algae. This way our water stays fresh for a long time, even in summer. Currently this setup is sufficient to support three people living on our settlement. In the future we want to expand our capacity to support a bigger amount of people.
