Harvesting Rainwater at Source
Published on:We encourage our drivers to clean their vans as frequently as possible. It's one of Ollie bugbears - a cleaning supplies company with dirty vans. In the summer, it's once a week minimum. When it rains, it's daily if required.
As the seasons change, the frequency of washing vans is increasing and our water usage will spike.
Going through building upgrades, we researched water harvesting options that could capture rainwater from the roof and store it for flushing toilets and vehicle washing.
However, the cost analysis didn't stack up (over £65,000) so we created our own.
We utilised a 1000 litre IBC that once contained AdBlue for our vehicles. We had a contractor divert one of the drainpipes into the IBC which has an overflow valve.
The drivers place the hose from the pressure washer in the IBC and away they go.
We anticipate that we will use an average 100,000 litres of water on washing vans over the course of the year, not from the mains.
