Benefits of Commercial Rainwater Harvesting

The roof area available on most commercial buildings makes them prime candidates for rainwater harvesting. In a bid to create an overall more sustainable property many new developments are now incorporating this into the initial design as standard. If you have a commercial property and it doesn’t currently have rainwater harvesting technology there will be solution available that is suitable for your needs.

Systems

There are various rainwater harvesting systems on the market today. These range from direct to gravity fed and move onto boosted and combi systems. The direct system is the most basic out of all of these, providing a simple design that captures and recycles the rainwater. The water is harvested from the roof of the property and directed into an underground tank or above ground tank ready for future use.

Boosted and combi systems will contain one or more pumps that take the water where you need it to be. Generally this is used to take the water from the main storage tank either above or below ground outside of the building to the break tank housed inside the building.

All of the above system will as a minimum contain a primary filter. This will prevent any debris getting into the tank and breaking down in the water. A filter can also increase oxygen resulting in clearer water. A secondary filter is usually include on the pump inlet combined with floating intake ensures only clean water is abstracted from the middle of the water column. Finally if higher levels of filtration are required then a cartridge filter can be added on the deliver side of the pump. To ensure there is always water available regardless of rainfall a mains back up unit is required which fills the tank with mains water if the level is too low.

Sustainability

More and more companies are looking to clean up their green credentials; rainwater harvesting is a great way to do this. Not only is it going to save the company money, it’s also going to dramatically reduce the amount of water used for day to day purposes. The amount of water that is captured by a large roof and diverted down a drain, when it could be captured and recycled is potentially huge.

Perfectly good water is being taken away from the property and processed water from elsewhere is being utilised instead. It doesn’t make sense from an environmental perspective, and it certainly doesn’t make good financial sense.

Applications

So what can all this captured rainwater be used for? As it is has not been processed it is not safe to drink directly; that however doesn’t mean that it is useless. The vast majority of water in a commercial property is used elsewhere; non-potable water could be a direct replacement for this.

Whether the water is used for flushing toilets, washing laundry, grounds maintenance, irrigation, washing vehicles, cooling equipment it all adds up to a huge amount of water.

Savings

Obviously the more people that you employ the more water you are going to use. This is where the greatest savings can be made. The cost of installing a commercial rainwater harvesting system is likely to be paid back within the first three to five years. In addition there are tax incentives to invest in water saving technology  even more of reason to invest.

Commercial rainwater harvesting not only makes great financial sense it is also one of the best ways of doing your bit to help the environment.

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