[amazingamazing]

Where do you live where you can collect rain at a quantity that would allow you to forgo central water?

I’m not talking about having a barrel. Most states don’t care about that quantity. I’m talking about storing on the order of 10k gallons. A rain barrel is nothing. An average family in the USA uses hundreds of gallons a day. It doesn’t rain daily so you’d need thousands of gallons. Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually feasible for everyone to do this due to space constraints, which is why it’s generally not allowed.

[batch12]

My state provides rainwater collection guidance in the plumbing code. We also have wells. I use a well.

[amazingamazing]

Which state is this? Some states such as Massachusetts and Maine, will allow you to have a well, but then you cannot have central water. Thus, the dichotomy is irrelevant since it's not like someone actually has a choose, since it's done on the municipal level.

In fact, generally the places in Connecticut, and New England that have well water are because they specifically cannot have the other.

I don't know much about western USA, but I suspect it's similar.

[potato3732842]

You're being actively misleading. Like on a scale of normal people to politicians to liars you're at least in the politicians range.

The only states with restrictive surface water policies, generally, are the western ones, because every drop of water is allocated according to interstate agreements and letting peasants take what falls on their land is like the toddler version of letting privateers crap on a treaty.

In New England and the east generally, you can either have a well or municipal water, not both, because they don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be.

[amazingamazing]

> In New England and the east generally, you can either have a well or municipal water, not both, because they don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be.

this just isn't true. Can you have private well water in Boston, Hartford or Portsmouth? The answer is no. In general in the northeast, those who have well water have it explicitly because they're not served by the municipality. Feel free to give counter examples with specific cities or towns that serve both and actively let you switch between both for a given address that supports both.

There are some towns in New Hampshire for example where the town has municipal water but a given house does not (it has well water), but usually that’s due to specific characteristics of the lot that forbid it from having a municipal without a large cost, so the developer sets up well water instead.

What you're saying doesn't even make sense - municipal water is routed to a treatment plant, so it wouldn't matter anyway.

[ericmay]

> Can you have private well water in Boston, Hartford or Portsmouth? The answer is no

Why do you think that is?

[ericmay]

Well you wrote that in the US it’s generally illegal to collect rain water and I don’t think that is true.

But if your point was that it’s illegal to collect enough rain water for XYZ purpose or scale I think that’s a bit different.

[amazingamazing]

that's fair - I should've said that it's illegal to collect enough rain to not need municipal water.

[ath3nd]

> Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually feasible for everyone to do this due to space constraints, which is why it’s generally not allowed.

You are getting into something there. You understand the necessity of municipal water collection mandates due to space constraints, but when it comes to public health (e.g vaccines) or public dental health (e.g fluoride in water), that's beyond comprehension and an infringement on your right (to have bad teeth)?

Also, in the real world, most (emphasis on most) states don't have any restrictions on collecting rainwater, and some actively encourage people to do so.

- https://todayshomeowner.com/gutters/guides/states-where-it-i...

- https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garden/saving-and-using-r... (Florida highly encourages people to collect rainwater)

[amazingamazing]

We are talking about drinking, e.g potable. Your links explicitly say don’t collect to drink.