Is Rainwater Safe To Drink?

Rain is safe where it falls and unsafe where it lands. The roof, the gutter and the barrel each add something, so treated rainwater can be drinkable and untreated rainwater from a shingle roof usually is not. Filtration handles the particles and the bacteria. It does not handle what the roof leaches.

This is a scaffold sample, not finished editorial. It exists so the route, the layout, the schema and the link registry can be checked end to end. The real article is written in session S4.

What is in it before you treat it

Bird droppings, roof grit, whatever settled out of the air, and in older buildings the roof material itself. The first few gallons of any storm carry most of it, which is the entire argument for a diverter.

What people get wrong

Boiling kills what is alive and concentrates what is dissolved. If the concern is lead or asphalt runoff, boiling makes the water worse, not better.