Roof looks great. I'm sure you guys are going to enjoy it and the peace of mind.

On the water issue. Setup the gutters and divert the rain spouts pitching away or where it pitches away around the building. If it doesn't do this anywhere close, you can run corrugated piping under the ground which is cheap and run it till it hits an area that disperses it away.

For the rain barrels set up however many you need and where your down spouts are, you can set it up with an overflow so when the barrels are filled the excess goes back into the gutter.

Pam --- I've heard little bits and pieces about storing water in the soil too, but haven't read anything definitive. However, this weekend I'm enjoying Water Storage by the author of Create an Oasis with Greywater and I have high hopes the book will cover topics like that in great detail.

Marco --- What I'm afraid of is that dumping all of that water in one spot, even one that flows away from the trailer, is going to result in some seriously soggy soil. I just did the math and with all of this year's fancy porch additions, we'd be putting out 1,142 gallons of water from our trailer conglomerate if we got two inches of rain (which is relatively normal). That feels like a huge amount of water to me, but I'm not sure how much it really is in terms of soggifying the ground.

I think you (and Mark) are right that we need to figuring out the diversion first, and then adding in the rainbarrels so they overflow to the diversion will be easy.

Mona --- I am thinking of linking it up with our greywater project, depending on which solution we decide on.

Heather --- Thank you! That made it easy to find the article: http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/rainwater-harvesting-zm0z12aszhun.aspx for anyone who's reading along. Storing water in the soil has been the most intriguing part of the book I'm reading so far too. I'm a bit concerned I might overload the ground, but perhaps that won't be a problem with our clay....

Roland --- That was my first impulse too, until Mark reminded me that during the winter, we'd capture a lot more water than we use. We'll probably still use a tank, but also need to figure out how to divert the water for cold weather.

From your previous posts showing some topo maps of your land and from pictures of land around the homestead it looks to me you guys have plenty of various grades for water to continue onward and spread.

Another idea is if you have a low spot nearby that would create a natural pond/watering hole from diverted/collected water you then could use that for watering also and not have to worry about it freezing lines/barrels, etc.

Do you guys have a stream nearby pushing with a slight current or does it drop in elevation over a certain distance cause if you do you could utilize a ram-pump setup that would give you running water using only the energy in the flowing water to pump. It's something I've been reading and seeing lately by some other homesteaders.

Marco --- A pond is one option that I've pondered for a while, but I think it might be too much work/money for the amount of reward we'd get back from it. I'm still on the fence about that, though, and what might make more sense is a wet weather pond that provides habitat for frogs without trying to be a permanent body of water.

We get a lot of questions about ram pumps. Unfortunately, our creeks are pretty flat, so we don't have the drop needed to make them work.

Wether you put up a roof or not, you're still getting the same amount of rain. So if the soil around the trailer turns into mud during the winter (or not), that won't change.

If you get 1100-odd gallons, that should fill four big IBCs.

Instead of worrying about where you're going to divert all the water to, think about what you could do with it. Some random ideas.

The roof is a couple of feet up from ground level. So maybe lift up an IBC to roof level and create some head for your indoor plumbing. That would work even better on the barn, BTW.

Running a water circuit from the IBC around the stove(pipe) could keep the water from freezing in the winter. And if you insulate the tank you might even get warm(ish) water for a shower.

Integrating an IBC filled with water into the wall of your house would create a thermal mass to even out temperature swings.

Roland --- No, no, as Mark points out, there really will be more water falling on the ground. All those gallons of water that used to puddle on the roof and slowly evaporate away will now be hitting the earth.

More seriously, thanks for the information on the traditional method of handling roof runoff. I'd been meaning to look into that, but hadn't gotten around to it.