Don't Try This At Home

My brilliant and beautiful (I'm required to say that by her lawyers) wife and I recently got in a *discussion* about what we would do in our present living situation (Plan A) if we we're suddenly without a water supply. She suggested we could "just catch rain water in buckets".

The next two behaviors on my part explain the reason for the lawyers.

First, I burst out laughing - rolling on the floor in derisive, sarcastic laughter... the way a computer nerd laughs at you when you tell him that you haven't set your computer to automatically download and install Microsoft Windows updates. It wasn't pretty, but that was only step one.

Second, I sobered up from my apoplexy and managed to force out a clarifying question, "Are you crazy?" I meant it as a legitimate question, but somehow, between my mouth and her ears it came across as if I were questioning her sanity. I stand by my original question, but I can see how the nuance of my query could be lost on someone who thinks catching rain water in buckets is a sufficient solution.

I started to regale her with some simple arithmetic equations contrasting average local rainfall with the minimum daily requirement of potable water (let alone unpotable water), but I could see that in the Tivo of her mind she was short-cycling on my laughter and questioning. This simple exercise in mathematical proofs was quickly going nowhere. I decided to drop the conversation and pursue the exercise in the labyrinth of my mind, but, oh no, she wouldn't let it go, called Lawyers-R-Us, and extracted this negotiated apology from me. "I'm sorry, I was wrong, I won't do it again." (It wasn't from my heart, though. I have that tattooed on the inside of my left palm, just below the last thumb knuckle. I read it dispassionately - just as I have many times before.)

The problem remains, what is the likelihood of being able to collect enough water from the sky to meet my basic needs? Oh, and also the question of "when will I learn that [my wife] has feelings, too" is still on the table, but let's take these items in order. How much water is enough? Estimates range from 100 to 500 gallons per day for domestic water use. I'm not sure what all is calculated in those estimates, so let's rough up some of our own. Let's say that I go down to the neighborhood pond to wash my clothes (and myself) once a month (even in Decemburrrr) and that I let my yard revert to weed-friendly "native prairie grasses". Let's say that I only use water for drinking or cooking (no gardening, no water for livestock (e.g. the neighborhood rabbit that is likely to get eaten), nothing else, just eating and cooking). I reckon I'll need at least one gallon per day just to drink and let's estimate another 2 gallons per day for cooking and the occasional finger painting session (let's not take all the fun out of this). That's 3 gallons a day minimum water usage or about 1100 gallons per year ("per person" (I have to say "per person" because if I didn't, it would assume that I don't plan to give my wife any water and that makes her lawyers nervous)).

Okay, that's the minimum need. What's the Good Lord gonna give by way of supplying that need. Brilliant and beautiful Kansas City receives an average annual rainfall of 38 inches. All I have to do is catch it like my wife told me to do. Let's stick a five gallon bucket (hereinafter: 5gb) in the yard and see how that works. The average 5gb is 15 tall. That means, to all you third graders out there, the bucket has 5 gallons in it after 15 inches of rain has fallen. If KC gets 38 inches of rain, one 5gb will collect 12.6 gallons total throughout the year. If one person needs 3 gallons of water a day or 1100 gallons a year, that person would need EIGHTY SEVEN 5gbs in the yard to collect enough water. That would take up 720 square feet of yard, by the way. To provide for my brood of six (myself, Mrs. B&B, and the four children that can't find their way away from home), I would need 520 5gbs taking up 4324 square feet or basically my whole yard (I guess, I haven't measured it). And that only provides for absolutely Saharan levels of water use and doesn't speak of the need to store it in a way that minimizes evaporation and contamination. (And by the way, those 520 5gbs would cost over $2000 to purchase.)

Now, some of my more insightful readers are saying, "Clark, you big dummy [which is really no insight at all], you already have a collection system available to you - your roof and gutters." Dead on, I say, well, observed. If I have done my math right (and believe me, I have NO idea whether I have or not) at 38 inches of annual rainfall, one square foot of collection area will net one quarter gallon per year. Let's say I have a roof that rambles out over 1200 square feet, I would be collecting an additional 305 gallons annually to my water supply - but that has to be divided by six, so my reader's brilliant insight has netted each person an additional 50 gallons a year to add to their paltry 1100 gallons sitting in buckets in the yard. This isn't going the direction I need it to go. (The math on this is really dubious. I'm going to have to get a sharper pencil.)

Well, I have a small eating-ice-cream-too-fast headache from all this and it started with an innocent argument over my wife's mental capacity. Maybe I'm the one with the smaller brain (of the two in question). THE BIG POINT IS that even at peri-starvation levels, there is not enough *local* rainfall available to sustain life. By local, I mean what I can catch in buckets in my backyard. If I were serious about having to provide my own water, I would need to devise a retaining pond and sequester enough land around it to keep it replenished. That's a critical factor in designing PLAN B world.

[Editor's note: The alleged argument between me and Mrs. Brilliant and Beautiful is purely fictitious and is used here only as a device to create tension in the reader's mind and to carry the plot line forward to resolution. In reality, Mrs. Brilliant and Beautiful is perfectly sane, adores me completely, and trusts me implicitly to provide all of her water needs. And I would never, I repeat never laugh at her derisively. Never. She has guns.]

Addendum 1.a For all my nerd friends (yes, you know who you are) who are going to shoot sparks off their slide rules double checking my math, let me help you out a bit with my latest (re)calculations.

231 cubic inches per gallon of fluid
144 cubic inches: one inch of rain on one square foot
0.62 gallons per one inch of rain on one square foot
1000 square feet of roof area
623 total gallons from one inch rain fall on 1000 sqft
38 inches annual rainfall in KC
23688 total gallons collected

Based on this recalculation, a 1000sqft roof would collect about 4000 gallons per person (6 persons) per year, pushing the net usable water per person per day to about 11 gallons - much better than my original 3 gallons, but still in the minimum range. This recalc is more in line with the estimates of 12 inches of rain stated here. Check out these FAQs from people who are actually in the rainwater collection business. They estimate 550 gallons per 1000sqft from a one inch rain. Not far from my new 623 gallon estimate. I'm nothing if not optimistic.

Addendum 2c Just in case anyone thinks I'm not taking this subject serious(ly) enough, here is the skinny on how to calculate water need:

Demand drinking and cooking Q = number of consumers * C1 * 30 = Q [m3/month]

C1 = daily water consumption for drinking/cooking per capita (say 2-5 lcd)

Demand other purposes Q = number of consumers * C2 * 30 = Q [m3/month]

C2 = = daily water consumption for non- drinking/cooking per capita (say 10-20 lcd)

Addendum J

For the last word on the subject, and by that I mean LAST WORD, I direct you to this source

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/well/resources/fact-sheets/fact-sheets-htm/drh.htm

Okay, can we get back to paranoia and conspiracy theories? Let's have some fun.