Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Solar Two - Rainwater Harvesting


We experimented and constructed a rainwater harvest system for the orphanage at Prey Veng.
Back in the laboratory, we experimented using the heat gun to seal plastic sheets together for making the rainwater collector. We also build a huge water bag to collect the 1 tonne of rainwater.

We brought all the materials to the orphanage and constructed the rainwater harvesting system. We used a monkey ramp to drive the iron picket into the ground. The plastic sheets were spreadout and tightly secured to the iron picket with steel wires.


The design need some fine tuning as we did not expect the rain in Cambodia to have very strong wind. One day when it was raining heavily, the strong wind blew and tore the plastic sheet which is used to collect the rainwater. We recommend them to build a proper roofing system instead of spreading a wide plastic sheet in the open. This approach will be able to withstand the strong wind when it rains.