Collecting water off the caravan roof.

iana · Guru

Collecting water off the caravan roof.

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

Ian, I do if I'm short of water.
At a camp at Moorrinya National Park, our Eagle only had a 50L water tank & it was getting low. Luckily one afternoon it rained so I dropped one end of the awning & collected the water - in a bucket. Fixed my problem.
Fortunately when it rains in Nth Qld it is warmish & so getting wet to add rainwater into the tank with a funnel & bucket isn't an issue - not like it is in Warrnambool at he moment!

Eaglemax · Guru

This is one of my thoughts when building my caravan however, I had too many other things on my mind like all the challenges of building a small van without brakes under 750kg ATM

However, my next van is in the pipeline and I'm still at the design stage. My thoughts are to obtain some sort of PVC "U" channel and mount it at the back of my van. As my van will have a sloping retro style rear wall and a centre peak the rain that falls to the rear half of the van will find the gutter and to the tank. The gutter can be hidden by a bumper bar. Another idea is to get one or two tanks mounted under your tug's cabin. Not much different weight wise than carrying two teens in the back seat. A flexible pipe from the overflow of the van to those tanks when camped. For us, our new van will be 850kg ATM with brakes (max towing capacity of our car) so water capacity is limited to say 65 litres. We could double that if utilizing under the car floor. Add a tap and fill buckets to fill the van tank etc

I think any ideas to collect water has merit. I've often wondered if an awning was totally horizontal and had a central low point with drain and flexible hose into the tank. A clever manufacturer could make a 4 triangle folding plastic/acrylic awning roof quite easily rather than canvas.

Some ideas have limited potential. I've recently read up on wind power for vans. I'm not convinced it is worth the investment yet. Some say there is a hum from the unit, others say you need too much wind before it works and so on. Whereas the collection of rain water is a fairly guaranteed method as long as you can do it effectively and shorten the set up time. We have enough to set up once arrived at our destination. A gutter on an awning could be annoying whereas a gutter on a van rear and front wall once installed would not be time consuming.

Yuglamron · Guru

I think it sounds like a great idea but I think it should be tempered by caution.

I would seriously consider adding a .5 micron filter to keep Giardia and Crypto-Spiridium at bay. It's always good to have the water filtered if using rainwater.

Robreen · Veteran Member

I have got a rain gutter water saver that attaches to the flap of the awning. Usually let the first lot of water go to waste, then collect the rest. Second advantage of the rain gutter clips is that the water does not drip straight down and you don't get water and mud splashing in under the awning into the area where I sit drinking a white or a red watching the rain fall. Robert

iana · Guru

I have the same Robreen, but I am a bit apprehensive about leaving the awning up during a stormy night. I have to get more of the gutter clips for it to work, I think the water would need to be pumped into the water tanks to be effective.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

We catch water from the roof via a QC hose fitting that connects directly to the tank filler via gravity.
A few hours of drizzle can harvest a large volume of good water.
All our water is chlorinated and filtered anyhow, so we have no contamination concerns.

Water catchment.jpg

Cheers,

Peter

Ozzie_Traveller · Senior Member

G'day all

We do our [occasional] water collections from the awning as well. Here's some pix
zDSCF5268(2).jpg

The system works quite well, esp once the water starts running. Also because of the slope of the bucket, dust & debris is held in the base of the bucket while the water drifts off thru the hose

Hope this helps
Phil

trouto · Senior Member

there is a "GO FLOW RAIN GUTTER "

that collects the rain that falls off your roof of your van

its from NORTHERN RV [ northernrv.com.au ]

i just read about it in the Caravan and Motor home Magazine

rockylizard · Guru

Gday...

I couldn't find it on the northernrv website ... but I found it here -

See GoFlow Rain gutter here

Cheers - John

iana · Guru

That's a good idea rockylizard, but the van or motor home has to be the right design to except it. But are these systems usable, i.e. does it rain when you need the water, perhaps I need to talk with Dougwe, he may know some rain dances!

Mike Harding · Guru

Ozzie_Traveller wrote:
We do our [occasional] water collections from the awning as well. Here's some pix

The system works quite well, esp once the water starts running. Also because of the slope of the bucket, dust & debris is held in the base of the bucket while the water drifts off thru the hose

A great idea Phil, I shall steal it :)

In design, simple is always good. I'll raise the bucket outlet about 50mm above yours to give a little more of a reservoir for dust collection.

Thank you for that.

Eaglemax · Guru

good ideas. I like the Go flow rain gutter.

Ozzie_Traveller · Senior Member

Mike Harding wrote:
A great idea Phil, I shall steal it :)
In design, simple is always good. I'll raise the bucket outlet about 50mm above yours to give a little more of a reservoir for dust collection.
Thank you for that.

G'day mate

No need to do that - I just swivel the bucket handle a smigen sideways to raise the outlet and leave the debris to run down into the lower corner. You will notice in image-1 the clamp I have for the hose onto the awning support - by pushing this clamp up towards the bucket that also tips the bucket sideways a bit as well

Phil

-- Edited by Ozzie_Traveller on Wednesday 13th of June 2018 07:39:35 PM

Mobi Condo · Guru

We have had a Homer Brand system since 2006 on our van. Simple to make and fix to the van without penetrating the skin even.

In very good rains (allow a bit of runoff to clean the roof muck off first by NOT collecting the first run off) we can collect 10 Litres of water for every 10mm of rain. Mind you we keep our van roof "clean as" between trips.

The water is collected into 20Litre buckets via hoses from the full width gutter system, one at front and one at rear and then pumped into the tanks through a double filter (to 0.5 microns and carbon). We have used it many times and it is soooooooo luxurious to have a hot shower in filtered rain water!

We can also draw water from rivers etc. but then we make sure of a flocculation stage and only put into the non-potable tanks. We have done the Vic Health Dept. advice of putting any water for human consumption through a 10 minute rolling boil procedure for any grombles.

Sarco Harris · Senior Member

My whole house is on untreated rain water. Other than first flush there is no treatment at all.

I don't think collecting rain water of the van would be an issue for bugs, I would be more concerned with filling the tanks with towny water from towny water points.

blissonwheels · Senior Member

Gooday,
Here is what I have done with great success-: Canvas shower bucket,, screw off the rose, fit a brass fitting that will take a snap on hose connecter, attach hose to this outlet and other end to water filler inlet, ( in our case this is located on the rear Bumper Bar of the Caravan, should also work if you have filler points along the side as long as the collecting vessel outlet is higher than the water tank filler point.

Make sure you drop the awning at one end so the water mostly runs to there. Have filed our tanks in a short time during a good downpour.

Onedodger · Guru

WE use this system ourselves. Just set it up wait until the awning has had a bit of a rinse then connect to the tanks inlet. However I have put an inline retic filter just after the bucket. My outlet is through the bottom of the bucket.

Ozzie_Traveller wrote:
G'day all

We do our [occasional] water collections from the awning as well. Here's some pix

The system works quite well, esp once the water starts running. Also because of the slope of the bucket, dust & debris is held in the base of the bucket while the water drifts off thru the hose

Hope this helps
Phil

PeterX · Senior Member

Just saying , bird poo ( probably unlikely, but possible ) on roof could contaminate collected rain water.

Mike Harding · Guru

PeterX wrote:
Just saying , bird poo ( probably unlikely, but possible ) on roof could contaminate collected rain water.

As my grandad use to say: "You'll eat a peck of dirt afore you die".