“Peter Bane, permaculture designer, teacher, consultant, editor & publisher of the Permaculture Activist Magazine as well as author of “The Permaculture Handbook” explains some of the water harvesting system at his urban homestead “Renaissance Farm” in Bloomington, IN.”
roofwater
Rainwater swale, water weirs and culvert cistern – Desert Permaculture
“Update to my rainwater fruit tree project where I use some permaculture techniques to water my fruit trees. Hopefully you might be able to incorporate something similar on your own home, homestead or urban farm! Thanks for watching:)”
Earthbag Water Tank Instructable
Check out my new how-to article at Instructables.com on building earthbag water tanks. I pulled together content from previous blog posts, added a drawing and edited everything into one concise article. Let me know what you think. Instructables.com is a major site that’s been very effective in promoting my natural building projects.
Concrete Water Tanks Versus Earthbag Water Tanks
I wrote in a previous blog post how I’m loving earthbag water tanks. My fascination with these water tanks jumped up a notch after reading an article about the difficulties of building a concrete water tank. From what I’ve recently learned by visiting Vanuatu and assisting in water tank design and construction, I know earthbag water tanks are much faster, easier and lower cost to build than concrete tanks.
Ferrocement Ground Tank
What’s the best, most efficient way to build water tanks? That question has been burning in my mind since seeing the extent of water shortages firsthand on my recent trip to Vanuatu. While looking and thinking about possible solutions, I’ve found numerous good ideas on the Internet such as this underground ferrocement tank made with mortar and chicken wire. This wouldn’t work in Vanuatu and on many other islands due to the rocky soil; however, it will work in many other areas. I love the simplicity of this method.
Earthbag Water Tank, Mele Village, Vanuatu
We were pleasantly surprised to see this earthbag water tank just down the road from a house we (Liz’s group) were building. The church group saw our project and on their own figured out how to use the same earthbag techniques to make their water tank. No plans, no technical assistance, nothing.