Large Rainwater Tanks for Agriculture & Farms are used by livestock and arable farms for different reasons. For arable farms, one of the main uses for plastic water tanks is bulk water tank water tanks for agriculture sprayers.
With sprayers getting larger a plastic water tank can make filling the sprayer easier and quicker with the bonus of free rainwater. These sprayer tanks are available with a 2? or 3? valve c/w male Camlock coupler to connect to the sprayer. Livestock farms can use large amounts of water from dairy washdown, pressure washing and livestock watering, so rain harvesting is a worthwhile investment. A study done by Warwick University suggests that on dairy farms, drinking water accounts for 50-75% of all water used with a dairy cow drinking up to 32,000 litres per year. According to an ADAS report on a Derbyshire farm which spent £12,500 on a borehole, pumps, control unit and buffer tank with the equipment is housed in an existing building, with mains backup supply was able to make savings in water costs of £6,000 in the first year. On this installation mains, water can still be used as a backup supply, if the borehole supply failed, and the buffer tank had run out of collected rainwater.
Rainwater Harvesting Return on Investment
A common misconception of rainwater harvesting any roof can be used for rainwater harvesting. There are factors that affect this from the type of roof, accessibility to gutters, area for storage tanks and pumps and filtration which may be required.
Other factors which affect ROI for rain harvesting systems include:
- Amount of rainfall you get – some parts of the country get greater rainfall than others. Rainfall statistics for your location are available to view on the Met Office website and when used with our rainwater calculator online here can start to give an estimate of how much you can save.
- Roof area, type, and pitch of roof – the roof size, type and downpipe locations will influence the efficiency of gathering water. A low pitch roof will collect water more effectively than a steeper roof.
- Installation & accessibility of water tanks – depending on how much work is required on the downpipes, having the tanks in the correct place makes water reuse for sprayers easier.
Rainwater harvesting is viewed favourably by planners on greenfield dairy projects. - How much water do you use? – before you can work out how much you can save, running over your old water bills with a rainwater harvesting installer, reviewing how it’s used and uses for rainwater will help working out the ROI of a rain harvesting system.
With over 500 hectares and 40,000 egg-laying chickens, the mains water bills for this farm in Leicestershire were considerable… View James’s case study on rainwater harvesting their livestock farm here
Why Filtering Rainwater from Farm Roofs Is Important
When collecting rainwater from your roof it is important that it is filtered before goes into the tanks so that it is as clean as possible. This will help prevent the water from going smelly before you use it. Rainwater harvesting systems, whether the water is stored in water tanks above ground tanks or one buried in the ground, there are four main components you need if you want to use the rainwater in non-potable situations like; toilets, washing machines, vehicles, watering the garden or irrigating.
Our larger 450m2 and 800m2 rainwater filters have a stainless-steel mesh and access to the screen to carry out maintenance or cleaning. Installing the rainwater filter where it is easy to inspect for maintenance is essential as all filters need maintenance/cleaning from time to time.
What happens if it doesn't rain?
In the main, the UK has a regular rainfall throughout the year, however during spring and some months the water you use may be more than the capacity of the water tank. We recommend that rainwater tanks are fitted with a part fill main top-up valve for installations. These can be set at 10-90% of the tank’s capacity depending on the buffer of water to keep in the tank. More details can be seen in the following video. With a mains water top-up, you may come under the regulations of Fluid Category 5 regulations – more details online here
Agricultural Rainwater Harvesting System Installers
There are many advantages to getting a rainwater harvesting system installer. From the setup of the filter, location of cutters and where treatment of rainwater is required, taking the form of UV filtration units which are sized to the water flow used or correctly specification of chemical treatment, Enduramaxx recommend discussing your requirements either with an insulter to ourselves to ensure the correct product is specified.
For more details or pricing on rainwater tanks for agriculture or for recommendations of your local installer – please get in touch today or email sales@enduramaxx.co.uk
