Use rain water tanks to fill your swimming pool

Swimming pools are sometimes seen as wasteful when it comes to water, especially in countries like South Africa where water is a scarce luxury for the majority of poor people.  However, there is no need to use up scarce ground water or expensive municipal water to keep your pool full; use rainwater from rainwater tanks and stop feeling guilty!

Use rainwater from rain water tanks to keep your pool topped up

Rainwater harvesting in South Africa is growing in popularity, not only because rainwater tanks reduce municipal water bills but they also ensure a supply of water during increasingly common municipal water supply outages.

Swimming pools can lose surprising quantities of water due to evaporation, especially in sunny South Africa during the summer months.  Fortunately in most areas of South Africa, most of the annual rainfall occurs during summer months – ideal for topping up or filling your swimming pool.

Backwashing of swimming pool filter systems can result in the loss of hundreds of litre of water within a few minutes…can you really justify this waste of water if you can’t top the pool up with rainwater that you’ve collected?

Rainwater harvesting systems need not be complicated or difficult to install – a rain barrel or water tank with a downpipe from a gutter is a simple, yet effective rainwater collection method.  Corrugated iron or steel rooftops are the most efficient rainwater collection surfaces, followed by tiles (thatched roofs are not suitable for rainwater harvesting).

If the main objective of your rainwater harvesting project is to collect rainwater for keeping your swimming pool full, a pipe leading from a gutter directly to the pool is a feasible and easy method.  You may want to place a sieve somewhere on the downpipe to prevent leaves and other debris entering your swimming pool.  The rooftop from a pool pump house or changing room can also serve as a direct rainwater collection surface.

Remember rainwater can be used for all other garden and household uses, including drinking water if appropriately filtered.  Ensure that you have enough water storage capacity to capture and store as much rainwater as space allows.  5000 litre plastic water tanks are a popular option for domestic purposes while bigger buildings with large rooftop rainwater harvesting surface areas would usually be better served by larger 10000 litre tanks, 15000 litre tanks or even 20000 litre water tanks.

Click on the links below to view the wide range of JoJo water tanks, tank stands and other high quality JoJo Tanks products available in South Africa.