Fun With Cisterns

Today's lesson about Kentucky living, kids, is how much fun can be had with cisterns. When houses are designed correctly, by human beings and not trained chimps, they are built with wide enough gutters to accommodate moderate to heavy rain flow off of the catchment surface, i.e. the roof. Gutters should be covered with mesh of some kind to keep leaves and spinny dillibobber seed thingies (scientific name) out of the pipe system leading to the cistern. These catchment gutters then lead to large diameter pipes which have been fitted together in such a way as to direct the flow of water to the cistern without leaking all over the dang place, but also can easily be taken down for cleaning. As you are about to see, children, my house was built by trained chimps.

The gutters have no mesh covering, so the pipes are constantly clogged with spinny dillibobbers which I am convinced are directed there especially by pernicious fairies. They also overflow when it even thinks about raining, causing us to lose half the water we might otherwise have caught, cleverly keeping the cistern from ever actually getting full. We wouldn't want that, no sir. The pipes leading to the cistern, when not clogged, have been fitted together backwards, creating impressive shows of back flow during heavy rain. Imagine a giant toddler back washing into his cup. Yeah, like that. Anyway, the long and short of this story, dear reader, is that our catchment system is a general wreck. But! Inspiration in desperation, my friends! Which leads me to...

How to catch twice as much water as your crappily designed catchment system would otherwise be capable of in a moderate to heavy rain:

1. Gather two lawn chairs, an aluminum ladder, a wheel barrow, a small tarp, and some twine.



2. Jury rig that sucker for all its worth.



3. Practice mad scientist chortle.

Other lessons in this series include:
How to Make a Cat Shelter Out of Household Junk and Duct Tape
10 Uses for Coffee Filters That Don't Fit Your Coffee Maker
and

Hang It All, Let's Move Back to the Suburbs