i like it with the border =)

no border

photoshop rendering

Now, I am not a pro in photoshop, so feel free to be critical!

Water_Distribution-Individual Household_PAW

The colours are wrong- for some reason in the conversion to JPG it changed them- what is blue is actually red.

Cool title page for PDF?

Permeable Pavement

Off-Grid Housing/Permeable pavement

Site Photo (2a)-no diagram

Site 2a: (not a collage, but one single photo):
I think this one is the best for our program- I have already started to do the illustration.

Site Photo (2)-no diagram

Here is the next site possibility (2):

Site Photo-no diagram

Hi all-
This is Site_1 possibility for the project - (there is no diagram overlay just yet, I will try and get to that tonight, if not first thing tomorrow morning.

grey water recycling videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eJYJPAR2L0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akrEncD4V50

Snow melting methods and collection

As far as winter irrigation in the greenhouse goes, melting snow in big barrels is the next best thing to a really long hose, a well and an electric pump. Fill ‘em up, cover with clear plastic, wait a day (even on a dull, cloudy day, it gets up to 60°F in the hoophouse). Repeat a couple of times, and you have 50 gallons of rainwater in a barrel! The alternative is dragging 200? of hose through deep snow from the barn to the greenhouse, then reeling it in and draining it, every couple of days. The weather has put the kibosh on the early-March, barely heated greenhouse plan, the happy prospect until March actually came around. (veggiegardeninfo.com/?cat=6)

I think this is one pretty easy, reasonable and affordable method. What can be possibly derived from this method, Kelly (since you are doing water collection), is maybe a combination of solar heated barrels and drainage/collection of melted snow that will flow into the main cistern.

Also, there is a number of existing systems that are used in the cities in order to melt snow on the roads. They are based on embedding heating cables into the pavement or concrete slabs that eventually get heated and thus melt the snow. Such systems can also be powered by solar power and then a water collection system can be applied.

Photo compilation

Solar composting toilets!

Passive solar composting toilet:
http://www.longbrancheec.org/pubs/composting_toilet.html

Commercial composting toilets:
http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter6_5.html

Check this out, too:
http://www.swsloo.com/

A great website on wastewater treatment with images and good descriptions:
http://www.vsb.cape.com/~nature/greencenter/tb/tb006.htm

Rendering samples

taken from earthship.net

Earthship

Check this out! Taken from: http://motherwit.wordpress.com/2007/03/
Afterwards, check the "Earthship" further at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship#Water
And mos def, their website: http://www.earthship.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23

"The other day I noticed that one of my tires had a slow leak. I took it to a place called M&M Tires, where it was expertly repaired within a few minutes by owner Bonifacio Martinez. While he worked, we chatted, and he remarked that, had he been unable to fix it, he might have donated the worn-out tire to the Earthship community, a few miles outside of Taos. I was fascinated by what he told me and decided to visit.

The Earthship community is a collection of unusual homes that look, at first glance, like something from a strange dream. They are organic in shape, studded with bottles, and partly buried in the ground. These are Earthships — passive solar structures that do not use any conventional power or water source, thanks to a combination of ingenious design, recycling, and solar and wind power. Water comes from snow melt or rain collection, and is used four times before it is finally discharged in a conventional septic system. The houses are amazingly pretty inside, airy and not at all dark.

The walls are made of recycled tires, aluminum cans, bottles (sometimes placed so as to let light in), and adobe, which is then oiled on the inside surfaces to make it darker, the better for absorbing sun and maintaining heat. Here’s a cutaway view of a wall:

Sloped windows on the southern side collect sun and also nourish the gardens that provide food, purify water, and beautify the space. When the sun is too intense, or to retain heat after dark, the windows can be covered:

The houses are wired with conventional electric outlets and the appliances are ordinary, albeit energy-saving models. They are priced competitively: a 1,200-square-foot home in this community might cost $200,000 (this includes all labor, the most expensive part of building an Earthship). Members of the Earthship Foundation have built them all over the world, and also are available to teach others. They have also published the building plans in several books."

Rainwater harvesting - Changing water realities - California (Australia)

Guys, I just came across this site, explaining severe water issues that both California and well, on a more extreme level, Australia are dealing with.

Courtesy of California Green Solutions (http://www.californiagreensolutions.com):

Rainwater harvesting is a feasible, and highly efficient solution for residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Save stress on water infrastructures and save money!

Take a look at the posted images to read what the article says:

Rainwater harvesting made easy:

Take a look at this link, not exceptional or anything, but gives you an idea as to how it could be done.

http://www.buildingdesign.co.uk/facil-group4/Environmental/rainwater-harvesting.htm

Rainwater collection diagrams

MAPS!!

I found a great mapping website. I really like the diagram Yana found, where the catch basin branches out and resembles almost exactly the root system of a plant. Anyway, I just quickly did a topographical map showing the contour of the land in our region. It's not as detailed as I'd like but something worth looking at. In the site you can also select/deselect various icons and information to show. I highly recommend exploring the site, you have access to tons of information and there is even a section specifically on "Freshwater." From what I can see there's maps ranging from % of people harvesting ground water to where/how it is consumed.

here is the link:

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index.html