Pump for drinking water from rainwater tank (edited)

[Nige F]

Just dig a well

 

[Madrab]

Just dig a well

Funnily enough that's what the Amish do

Typically they would use hand pumps as motors normally wouldn't be allowed, but even some do use more modern tech

How do Amish pump water? - Amish America

A reader in Indiana shares photos and a description of a water pump system in an Amish home: This is the most common configuration for a well pump in the Northern Indiana community. A water pump driven by a Honda engine. This picture was taken in one of the houses we looked at buying. This

amishamerica.com

 

[SaudisLoveAudis]

I don't know where you get your information from. Yes a lot of people including the Amish harvest rainwater for multiple uses but very few use raw rainwater, if it is to be potable water then it must be properly filtered and treated or at a minimum boiled and filtered. You don't necessarily need to use chemicals of course (UV/Carbon) but it does need to be properly prepared before being classed as Potable.

There can be a huge amount of bacteria and crap in rain water, form dirt/dust/dissolved elements that it absorbs from the air it passes through (acid rain etc) to more dirt, bird crap, bacteria and other dissolves contaminants from roofs etc that it hits before being captured. Location also plays a large part in rainwater quality - if you live in the middle of Alaska the rainwater will be much cleaner than most of England.

I would do a lot more information gathering before you start using rainwater in your tea.

I understand but again it's only 20PPM after all the risks you have listed. I don't live in an area of heavy industry but are these still a thing in England?

 

[Madrab]

I understand but again it's only 20PPM

20 PPM of what? That's only a measure of a given contaminant, or does it mean that there is only a total of 20PPM of all the possible contaminants that are in treated mains water in rainwater? Where in the world is that and where does that information come from as I don't believe that any credible organisation would just state ' there is only 20PPM of all possible contaminants in rainwater compared to tap water' that's a too wide and sweeping statement that couldn't really be substantiated. Heavy industry isn't really the issue now, amongst other things then cars/vans/truck/buses/factory pollutants/dust and dirt from farming picked up by the wind, even radioactive material can found in rainwater and a lot of these pollutants are naturally filtered out when rainwater filters through to become ground water.

All the information I seem to see these days is that there isn't any rainwater anywhere on the planet that is safe to drink any more without some type of treatment.

Lets also not forget that normal drinking water tends to contain minerals it has picked up whilst ground filtering that are quite essential for our bodies, these are not present in rainwater, so they would need to be supplemented. That and the naturally alkaline PH of groundwater, is know to be good for the human system, slightly acidic rainwater isn't and again would require treatment. I am not arguing that our treated water doesn't have chemicals that have been picked up/added that may be of concern to some but suggesting that raw rainwater is far cleaner is, IMO, quite a dangerous assumption.

I am not saying that rainwater shouldn't be drunk but it would not be a good idea to have it straight out the barrel, all water we drink these days needs treatments of one kind or another. Let's forget most of the water that is drunk these days, no matter how it comes out of the tap, has been rainwater at one time or another.

Oh and taking our wonderful Scottish Water as an example, there are very few of the chemicals you have listed in our water. That's purely environmental and we don't add fluoride either so our tap water can actually be better for us than bottled mineral water, especially if left in a container in the fridge to allow the chlorine to evaporate.