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most people build a in ground water catchment at the end of there house and catch the rain off there roofs. friends of mine both have a 10,000 gallon tank built with a concrete floor and block walls.you can hire a local mason to do the work.

We have both above ground and below ground systems for our small resort as backups.  The dry season is always an issue unless you have an extremely large capacity system.  Be careful who you use to build it.

The size of the cistern required depends on water usage, rainfall each month, and the surface size that you use to collect the rain. We used the usage figure of 100 gallons / day / person which is from a government website in the USA for city planning. You then need to determine which part of Belize you plan to build in. Get the figures from Belize as to the average rainfall per month for the area you are building in. Then using the size of the roof (or other items) you will use to collect the rain. This will give you an idea as to how much rainwater you will get. As stated earlier, the dry season will be the longest that you will need to get through.

We have two systems for storage. The one I like best is one built in the ground with a concrete floor and cement block walls. This is underneath a building from which we collect the water from. We have 4 down spouts we are collecting from. We also have an overflow from the tank in case we have another season like the last year were we got record rainfalls.

I believe I saw a filter attached to each spout going in to a cistern. This is in Belcampo PG.
If I can find details I will post it. It may be a good idea to filter out debris include bird droppings.

We collect rainwater as well. From roof to cistern. We have a whole house purification system with sediment filters, ceramic filter and UV. Works great and water tastes wonderful.

Hi Brigitte
It will be wonderful if you can share the details of filters and UV systems you have installed

Culligan system from Robert Nicolait & Associates Ltd. in Placencia. Lou knows her stuff. She used to run the Environmental Studies Centre in Belize City a long time ago. Her number is 523-3149.
The system is very low maintenance. The gutters, depending on where you live, will have to be cleaned on a regular basis. We have a wire mesh rolled up into the downspout to catch leaves etc.  We have our cistern cleaned once a year.
Filters are changed as per gallons used and the UV light has a countdown meter and should be good for a whole year.

Thanks