Should We Collect Rain Water?

Below is an article that addresses the legality of collecting rainwater in Florida. Apparently, the collection of water run-off from your rooftop is illegal in some states. However, it seems to be legal in Florida. Rainwater collection barrels can be easily obtained.  Should we collect rainwater?

Update August 26; regarding Florida: back to top There have been a number of searches accessing this blog regarding rain water harvesting legality in the state of Florida. After several hours of searching at the Florida state government’s site, I found nothing specifically prohibiting rain barrels, or rain water harvesting by individuals at the state level. I found that, in the Florida keys, rain water harvesting is the main source for all the water. Whether or not a person can “legally” set up rain barrels in this state will likely be determined mainly at the local level as of right now.  This situation is likely to change. Again, the regulations regarding water use are extremely complex and there are hundreds of documents. Here are some of the main links I found: Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes :->2010->Chapter 373->Part IV : Online Sunshinewww.dep.state.fl.us/water/waterpolicy/docs/2012_annual_rwsp.pdf Office of Water Policy – FDEPFrom these above links you will find the information used in this post, and interpretation.  Also here is another link to a list of Florida building and plumbing codes: E-Codes From the above links, it can be shown that there are major water issues in Florida, including a long running dispute with the state of Georgia. Look for rainwater harvesting to become very important in this area of the country very soon. If you have arrived here searching for laws regarding rainwater harvesting, check first with your homeowner’s association, county, or city officials. Next check your state Department of Natural Resources. Update July 18, 2014 regarding Florida: I have searched through the Florida government website at the above links. I  searched on rain water, roof water, rain barrels, surface water, runoff, rain water harvesting and found, after an hour of searching, nothing specifically prohibiting rain water harvesting by individuals. I did find over 100 links in Google results similar the the following links which show numerous state, and local municipalities encouraging rain barrel use :http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/conservation/rainbarrel/ http://fyn.ifas.ufl.edu/barrels.htmhttp://miami-dade.ifas.ufl.edu/environment/natural_resources.shtmlhttp://hillsborough.ifas.ufl.edu/fyn/rain_barrels.shtml Florida department of environmental protection http://www.protectingourwater.org/watersheds/get_wet/protectwater/rainbarrels/http://www.fkaa.com/buildingrainbarrel.pdf http://www.miamidade.gov/waterconservation/rain-barrels.asp http://www.dunedingov.com/index.aspx?page=625http://www.brevardcounty.us/NaturalResources/Watershed/RainBarrelWorkshopshttps://www.palmcoastgov.com/green/rain-barrels http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/index.aspx?NID=821 http://www.mymanatee.org/home/government/departments/utilities/potable-water-system/water-conservation/programs/rainbarrels.html In my humble opinion, it is highly unlikely that it is against state law in Florida to harvest rain water from your roof. If anyone reading this has proof otherwise, please leave a comment with a link to your source, and I will change this post accordingly . No link, no change.

http://www.enlight-inc.com/blog/?p=1036#floridas

Rain Gutter Repair Complete!

Building 33 finally has a fully functioning rain gutter from top to bottom. 

Good job, new BOD and Maintenance crew!

New Board Better Than Old Board? Let's See.

Building 33 suffered from water intrusion that rotted the back corner, requiring it to be torn off and replaced. For several days they worked on that building to repair the problem that had been created by water intrusion.  After the repair of the stucco was done, I posted an entry about the water continuing to run on the side of the building. The response to that was to create a "temporary fix," pictured below.  

As you can see in this picture, rain gutters are not "fixed" or functional when they have no downspout. Rain gutter maintenance is not a very attractive item, for many reasons. However, it is fundamental to minimizing damage to our buildings that is caused by water. This is not a difficult concept to understand, but somehow it is a VERY difficult maintenance item to get down here at TAJ.

The OLD BOD had over 7 months and did not get it done. Let's see how long it takes the NEW BOD to repair the rain gutter on building 33. 

Rain Gutter Cleaning by Maintenance Worker

With all the water damage that happens to our buildings, resulting in high refurbishment bills to unit owners, it is apparent that a cost-effective and important maintenance item is keeping our rain gutters fully functional. Yet, in all the years that I've lived here I have never seen our maintenance staff clean out a rain gutter. 

I was happy to get these pictures from the Property Management of a maintenance worker engaged in the arduous and important work of cleaning out the gutters on building 47.  Now, only 46 buildings left to do!

Rain Gutter Maintenance

One cause of building decay is water intrusion. In fact, it MIGHT be the single biggest problem that our buildings have.  To address that problem, some buildings have over-hanging eaves.  Some of the buildings without eaves have been fitted with rain gutters.  The problem with rain gutters is that they clog and need to be manually cleaned in order to be effective. A clogged rain gutter is no better than no gutter at all.  Even gutters with covers get clogged. The gutters on the back of my own unit need to be cleaned almost monthly or they clog to the point of being ineffective, in spite of having covers on them.

I would think that it would be a fairly simple, if mundane, task for the maintenance crew to clean the gutters from time to time.  They have a cherry picker that could easily reach.  I know there are gutter cleaning services in the community that we could hire to do the job.  I happen to know that there are young men in our TAJ community that are seeking summer employment -- maybe we should pay THEM to clean the gutters. Climbing up and down a 30' ladder and earning some money is good for a young man.

Whatever the case, ignoring the problem now because it is small and inconvenient means huge damage and expenses later.

Rain Gutter Problems for Building 33

Rain gutters have been added to some buildings as a really good measure to help prevent water intrusion damage.  However, the rain gutters themselves do require some maintenance.  In the case of building 33, pictured below, it is clear that the gutter is so full of leaves and or debris (in spite of leaf guards having been installed) that the water is running over the top of the gutter and down the side rather than down the spout (06 August 2011 rainstorm).  That particular downspout also has problems, in that the away-tube portion has never been installed and a rather large hole has grown, from rain-water erosion, at the back corner of that building's foundation.  There are some simple solutions that can be applied.  But there are multiple such problems around the property that have existed for several years and have not been addressed.  Previous posts on this subject can be found by clicking this link: (Other rain gutter posts: rain gutters)

                

It is too bad that the tree trimmers didn't clean out the gutters while they were right there (on 04 August 2011) with the lift equipment that would make it an easy and fast task to accomplish.

Building Maintenance Issue: Rain gutters

You might recognize this picture from an earlier post. It shows the damage that happens to our buildings when we do not adequately protect them from water intrusion. This picture of building 27 shows that the water had leaked through the stucco, rotted through the underlying plywood sheathing, rotted through the insulation, rotted several 2x4s, and had even rotted some of the paper off of the outside of the interior drywall. Damage that extensive is very expensive to repair, and even more so when it is involves replacing supportive trusses that have been rotted. The finding of rotted underlying materials has been a very common theme in our building refurbishments, resulting in very costly change-orders.

To address the problem of water intrusion, our buildings have all been given rain gutters when they are refurbished. Unfortunately, building 35 had one gutter that was perpetually clogged by leaves from the nearby trees. Those same trees clogged the rain gutters of buildings 33 & 40, also. In the pictures below (building 35 on the left, 33 on the right) you can see that clogged gutters do little to protect the walls of a building. When I noticed this problem, I made my first request (August 2007) for the installation of leaf guards.

I was pleased when I noticed that buildings 33 and 40 got the needed leaf guards installed. Their rain gutters now functioned perfectly, moving the water away from the walls and down the downspouts where it cannot rot the buildings' wood. But I was very displeased to find that building 35 did not have the leaf guards installed. I compared the downspout productivity of the two buildings (pictured below, building 35 left, 33 right) and immediately suffered from downspout envy! I wanted my gutters to work as well as my neighbors. So I asked the Property Manager and made my concerns made known to the Board of Directors. My building remained without leaf guards.

The Board of Directors eventually did send out a notice, in September 2008, that they intended to make assessments and install leaf guards on buildings that needed them. The assessment for building 35 would have been $864.00 (6 x $144.00). Unfortunately, that special assessment did not happen, and the leaf guards did not happen.

In all fairness, you may recall that the Board of Directors at that time was involved with mid-term re-election turmoil and associated controversies. They were also in the process of straightening out some very difficult financial and accounting problems. By comparison, leaf guards can seem like a very small issue. Nonetheless, I think that building maintenance is too easily overlooked and dangerously forgotten. So I made another request for leaf guards in March 2009.

The response that I got was that the maintenance men occasionally climbed ladders to the roofs and scooped out the leaves that clogged the gutters. The problem with that is that it did not work. Clogs reoccurred too quickly.

So eventually I bought leaf guards myself. Eight three-foot lengths cost a grand total of less than $16.00 at the local hardware store (pictured left, below). Click on the picture (below, right) to enlarge it and look closely, and you can see the leaf guard installed on the left side of the gutter on the back of building 35.

Now building 35 no longer suffers from downspout envy. The pictures below show the output during a recent daytime downpour. Both buildings 35 (below, left) and 33 (below, right) have leaf guards, fully functioning downspouts, and relatively dry walls during heavy rains. The problem was solved for a small fraction of the proposed price. Building 35 saved $848.00 in the cost of leaf guard installation. More importantly, it will save itself thousands of dollars by protecting itself from the inevitable rot that happens when water intrudes through a building's siding.

One purpose of maintenance is to spend a little money now to avoid spending more money later. Building 40 is a great example of that principle. In the picture below you can see the water streaming down a corner on the back of building 40. The downspout has fallen off and the water is just streaming right down the stucco, searching for any crack or hole. It would cost a little labor and maybe even a few dollars in material to reinstall a downspout. It is the kind of job our maintenance men can perform quite easily. If it is not done, the cost to building 40 will eventually be much higher when the siding and underlying structural materials have to be replaced.

Still Having Problems with Rain Gutters

The rain gutters on building 35 were installed in August, 2007. At that time I pointed out that they almost immediately failed to operate properly due to the large amount of leaves that the gutter collects (because there are so many trees nearby). Click here to see a post from that time that shows the water running over the edge and down the side of the building rather than channeling down the downspout as it should.

Since that time nearly two years ago I have been asking for leave guards to be installed on our rain gutters. We have had visits from the maintenance crew to remove the leaves that clog the downspout. In fact, they cleaned out our gutters within the past two months. Unfortunately, the trees shed their leaves so quickly that it would require much more frequent cleaning.

The latest rainstorm gave me an opportunity to take some pictures to demonstrate the problem we are having. It is hard to see in this picture, but the 50 foot long gutter that spans across two units in the back of the building has water pouring over the side and running down the building. The water breaches right at the point of the spot light in the picture below.


In August 2007 two buildings next to building 35 were fitted with the requested leaf guards. Pictured above is the downspout of one of those buildings during last night's storm. Compare the volume of water coming out of that spout to the amount of water coming out of the downspout in building 35, pictured below. You can see that the run off volume is much smaller for building 35. The water is restricted because the gutter has been clogged with leaves.


The consequence to having the water run down the side of the building rather than down the downspout of the rain gutter system is that the water infiltrates all the little cracks and fissures of the buildings siding. Over a long period of time that can only lead to problems of mold and rot. Evidence that the water is infiltrating the cracks can be seen on a back porch in building 35 where a porch with a roof has been installed. Water drops amounting to decent sized "leaks" can be seen where the siding cracks allow the water to bypass the caulking along the sealed joint of the roof to the side of the building, pictured above and below.


While the leaks into the porch might be a little bit annoying, it is the water infiltration into the siding of the whole building that is most alarming. Building 35 recently spent a collective amount of approximately $200,000 to have their building refurbished. Much of the expense of that project was due to water damage caused by infiltration. Part of the solution to the problem of water damage was to install rain gutters.

But our rain gutters do not work properly because they get clogged with leaves. The leaves do not get cleaned out often enough. Neighboring buildings got leaf guards but building 35 did not. The problem has been reported, even pictured and posted right here for all to see.

As a unit owner I am not allowed to install them myself. I am also not allowed to contract with someone to have them installed. All I am allowed to do is ask the Board of Directors, the Property Manager, etc.

So I am asking, "Please install leaf guards on the rain gutters of building 35."

Steve Frahm
building 35, unit 06

Solution to Planter Box Drainage Problem

$10.00 purchased a flexible drain-spout extension that was easily installed and was an important part of the solution to the drainage problem in the planter box (see the September 7th post). The item can be purchased at Lowes or Home Depot.