On this podcast, I talk a lot about water harvesting equipment. As in, rainwater harvesting cisterns, greywater harvesting systems, etc.
And you may be wondering, where does one get this stuff?
In this episode, we’re joined by Eli Nielsen, co-founder of The Rain Store, a water harvesting supply store that’s right here in Tucson.
Transcript
INTRO: From Tucson, Arizona, welcome to the Water Harvesting 101 podcast. My name is Martha Retallick. I’ve been a water harvester for 20 years, and I’m looking forward to helping you get started.
Before we do that, here’s a little Tucson secret: For most of the year, we’re in drought. That’s just how life is in the desert.
But when the rains return, oh, do they ever. They often bring an unwelcome friend called flooding.
How do we reduce the risks of flooding? We do it with water harvesting.
Water harvesting encompasses three activities:
- Redirecting rainwater away from where it isn’t wanted to where it is.
- Storing rainwater for later use, for example, during a drought.
- Recycling “used” water. At my place, I don’t let laundry water go down the drain. Instead, it’s for the fruit trees.
We’ll be covering all of these topics and more, so let’s get started.
EPISODE: Eli, before we started recording, we were discussing where a lot of water harvesting equipment comes from. Australia figures prominently.
Eli: Yeah, so a lot of the technology for water harvesting, and it’s pretty simple technology, but a lot of the screens and filtration and techniques to get that water off of the roof and into tanks has been pioneered in Australia.
There’s a great company there called Blue Mountain that manufactures a lot of the equipment that we sell – everything from the leaf eaters to the pop-ups and the mozzie stoppers.
Mozzie’s just an Australian way of saying mosquitoes. A mozzie stop is just keeping the mosquitoes out of your tank.
So, a lot of the verbiage and materials are coming from Australia. Fortunately, they’ve just opened a new warehouse in Texas. I think it’s going to make getting all this stuff a little bit easier and, hopefully, cheaper.
As far as the tanks, the world of cisterns is, like a lot of other things, has been kind of swallowed up by a large private equity firm.
So, a lot of these brands that used to list tanks under different names like Bushman, Snyder, Norwesco and Enduraplas, are now all owned and consolidated by Tank Holding Corp., which is a giant corporation.
Unfortunately, some of the uniqueness in some of these tanks has gone away. But they are all mostly being manufactured in Texas, believe it or not, with some up north in Minnesota and a very few in California.
Martha: And The Rain Store doesn’t just sell equipment for rainwater harvesting. Tell us what you sell for other types of water harvesting, like greywater.
Eli: For our greywater systems, we just we sell the most kind of basic simple setup, which is a laundry-to-landscape system.
We sell all the parts and pieces you would need for a laundry-to-landscape system, so everything from the two-way valve that lets you switch between your sewer and your system to the air vents. Also, the PVC, all of the specific fittings, the one-inch poly, and the purple back emitters that allow you to adjust flow rates.
When I was looking for that as a contractor, it was real hard to find. You had to go to 10 different stores to get this piece and that piece, which made it a little bit more difficult than it should be. So, we wanted to have all that stuff in one place and consolidated.
The other way to do your greywater harvesting is branched drain systems. We don’t sell any of that stuff. It’s generally ABS material that’s commonly available at any hardware store.
Martha: Here’s the thing: You mentioned the word “contractor.” If I were to purchase a laundry-to-landscape greywater harvesting system, would you be the installer or do you send people to reputable installers?
Eli: We send people to reputable installers because we don’t install greywater systems.
And I’ll tell you what what the original intention was at The Rain Store. We wanted to become a real educational hub and help empower homeowners to want to do this stuff themselves.
We’ve got everything from diagrams to just the practical knowledge, if you’re talking to us about how to install these systems. So, for the homeowner who’s not scared to dig some trenches, all this stuff is available, accessible, and relatively straightforward to see once you’ve got an example.
We have a big three-dimensional example of how these things get installed. If you’re comfortable with digging some trenches and putting a little bit of sweat equity in, it’s pretty easy to do.
If you’re still not feeling comfortable, then we have a handful of incredible installers and contractors around Tucson that we work with and like to send clients to.
Martha: And I want to mention something about digging trenches if you’re a do-it-yourself-er. Before you dig, call 811!
I say that in memory of my mother, who was assistant safety director for the gas company in Pittsburgh.
Eli: Shout out to all the gas company employees!
Martha: So, you are physically located in a part of Tucson where there’s been a road construction project, is that still affecting you?
Eli: Yeah, getting in and out of our yard can be a bit of an ordeal. Fortunately for us, it hasn’t really impacted business as much as it might for some other companies because, at the moment, there’s only one Rain Store.
There’s only kind of one place like ours, where you can go and get all these supplies and see all these tanks. You can see this stuff in both practical and real-world scenarios, and have a showroom where you’re able to look at all of it.
So I think most of our clients have been real willing and real patient to tolerate that traffic to get in and see us.
Obviously, we’d love for that construction to be done. But again, we’re probably not as impacted as some of the other businesses around town where somebody just goes, “Well, I’m not going to go to that store. I’m going to go to the other one on the other side of town because it’s easier to get in and out of.”
Martha: And since I’ve alluded to a physical location, where are you in Tucson?
Eli: We are at 3248 East Grant Road, on the south side of Grant between Country Club and Dodge. Big pink building.
Martha: And tell us your website.
Eli: Website is www.therainstore.com. We’ve got a lot of information on there. It’s due for some updating.
We’re currently in the process of developing some educational materials and some self-guided posters for the store. All of that stuff will shortly be making its way onto our website.
So the website will start to display some of these educational components that we were envisioning from the beginning.
But currently, there’s a lot of information on there about the store, about what we do, about our ethos, why we exist, and what we want to be for the community.
Martha: And the sort of thing that you’re selling is not where I can go add to cart for this, add to cart to that.
People, you really need to come into the store and talk to them.
These installations are very customized. You want to get it right. The best way to do that is to get off the Internet, go out into that place called the real world and talk to people.
Eli: Yeah, I concur. I agree.
I think eventually we will have an online store and some of these components will be able to be added to your cart and you can buy them.
But I think it’s really important to get in there and see it. And again, we’ve got lots of display examples inside and outside.
Depending on the year and the weather and your mood, you don’t have to be out in the sun or you can be out enjoying it if it’s a nice day.
But it’s real important to see how these are installed. Every site is real nuanced. There’s never exactly one way to get the water off the roof and into your tank. Every house has its own specific issues.
We’ve tried to show as many different examples as we possibly can. We’ve got a real helpful staff who likes to guide you through and show you what we’re doing.
And it’s real common for people to come in two or three times before they ever purchase anything because sometimes you need to get down here and see it, wrap your head around it, get back home and understand how this might work in your setup or your scenario.
Then you figure out what you don’t know, come back in with some additional questions, and gain a little more knowledge. So, it can be an iterative process, but we definitely love having people coming down, kicking the tires, looking around, and asking a lot of questions.
That’s how we feel we’re serving the community best – by having that stuff on display for people to come down and see.
Martha: What else would you like to add?
I think I’d just like to add, as I said before, we originally intended to be a DIY resource for customers.
I think we hit one of two kinds of clients. We had clients that come in and are real enthusiastic about rainwater harvesting and maybe don’t know everything about it and are trying to ascertain whether or not something they can do themselves.
Once we give them all this knowledge about what to do and how to do it, people either are generally really enthusiastic and feel really empowered to go home and do it, and then we can work with you on the installation and the details.
Or what we’ve also found is after people receive all that knowledge, they go, “This is a little bit more than what I want to do.”
So, for that reason, we got our contractor’s license. We install tanks.
Personally, I think we’re the best tank installers in Tucson, but I’ve obviously got a dog in that fight, so I’m going to think that.
We can work with you to help you install it yourself. Or we can install it for you if you just don’t want to have the hassle or don’t feel like it’s something you want to take on.
I always encourage people to come down and pay us a visit and talk to us. And ask all the questions on the front end.
Martha: That’s Eli Nielsen, co-founder of The Rain Store in Tucson, Arizona. Thank you, Eli, for being on the podcast.
If you’d like to learn more about water harvesting, sign up for my monthly email newsletter. If you do, I’ll give you a free copy of my Water Harvesting Cheat Sheet.
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OUTRO: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Water Harvesting 101 podcast. If you’d like to learn more about water harvesting, meet my book family.
First, it’s City Nature, the book that’s guaranteed to look great on any coffee table. City Nature reveals my secrets to water harvesting through my 20-year journey of transforming my Tucson home into an urban oasis. Get the details at CityNatureBook.com.
And if you’re on the go, take water harvesting with you. Water Harvesting 101 is an audiobook and eBook combination that will teach you the nuts and bolts of water harvesting and show you how to put them to work. Available exclusively at WaterHarvesting101Book.com.