Building reveal

Philadelphia house to receive retrofit

Our group has currently decided on using a single family house as the building to receive our proposed retrofit. Housing at least 4 people (4 bedrooms) with the addition of 3 baths, a lot of water is bound to get used, so we thought this building would greatly benefit from our design. This house was also built in 1868, so the appliances are probably less efficient than they could be.

To approximate how much water is used, the group thought of multiplying the number of possible residents living in this house (1 per bedroom) by the average number of gallons of water used by a person a day (87). And then, that number would get multiplied by 365 for a rough estimate of yearly water usage.

As shown in the photo, the house has an angled roof, so our idea of using gutters to collect rainfall is still viable. However, the house already has gutters. On the plus side for us, the gutters lead into the ground and the water ends up getting wasted. Our group plans on redoing the gutters in our design so that the water is collected instead. One of the uses for the rainwater harvest will be to water the vegetation growing in the backyard (pictured below).

Backyard to benefit from rainwater harvesting