Eastern Plains
Extra rooftop water collection with a well needs a DWR check
A Porch Note from Colorado Porch — plain-English local details for all 64 Colorado counties.
Beyond the ordinary rain barrel sits a bigger rainwater option, and a home with a well may be able to reach it. The mistake is assuming you already have. This is not a do-it-yourself call.
Under a separate state law, certain residential properties with a residential well, or properties that could qualify for one, may collect more rooftop precipitation than the barrel rule allows. The piece people skip is the permit: a DWR rooftop precipitation collection permit has to be in hand before that larger collection begins. The water comes first as paperwork, then as tanks.
Everything hinges on one word, eligible. Whether a property qualifies for a well permit is settled when DWR reviews an application, not before, so a house on a shared water system or a parcel without the right well path may simply not fit the same rule, no matter how good the roof and the rainfall look.
When a listing or a neighbor mentions rooftop collection, the thing to do is ask for the actual DWR paperwork rather than take the claim at face value. Planning your own setup runs the other direction: walk DWR’s rainwater and well-permitting pages first, confirm where you stand, and only then price out tanks or touch the gutters.
Sources
Official or primary sources used for this note. Local details can change, so confirm before acting.