Living Water Rain Harvesting, a Fort Mill startup, is offering customers a way to water their lawns regardless of local water restrictions.

The company does it by installing a large storage tank connected to a home's down spouts. The system includes a filter to separate contaminants picked up on the roof before the water enters the storage tank. It also includes a 1/2 horsepower pump and can be attached to existing irrigation systems or to portable sprinklers via a hose.

"The pump gives it the same water pressure as what's inside the house," Cheryl Stasinowsky claims.

Cheryl, her husband Wally and their children Amber, 19, and Jordan, 14, started Living Water Rain Harvesting earlier this year after returning to the U.S. from Australia. Originally from California, the Stasinowskys closed their custom home building business after 20 years and moved to Fort Mill to train as missionaries at MorningStar Ministries. After about a year here they moved to Australia for 14 months to finish their training. That's where they learned about harvesting rainwater.

"Everyone in Australia is doing it because they're in the five-to-six-year drought there," Stasinowsky said. "We came back from Australia in December and realized we were in a drought here, too. We needed jobs and there was this whole new market open but no one understands what it is."

The family's time in Australia changed the way they thought about rain and natural resources, Cheryl Stasinowsky said.

"I didn't even think about capturing rain water until Australia," Wally Stasinowsky said. "In the past you were always trying to get water away from the house. I used to hate it when it rained because I was putting on roofs, but now I can't wait for it to rain."

Because of the drought, the family wanted to collect the rain water that fell on their roof, but after more than a month of searching in vain for a company in the area to install such a system on their house, they decided to do it themselves.

"The hardest part was we had to put this all together ourselves because no one in South Carolina is doing it," she said. "We had to find the suppliers, and we have taken about a month-and-a-half researching it to get to where we could start."

Wally installed the company's first system on his own house. A 560-gallon tank is tucked beneath his back deck next to a small pump. Two rain gutter down spouts on the back of the house currently pour water into the tank when it rains. He even created a gauge that shows the level of the water in the tank.

The first significant rain storm after he installed the collection system dumped a half-inch of rain on the area - it filled the 560-gallon tank in 90 minutes.

The Stasinowskys plan to double the collection capacity with a second 560-gallon tank and connections to the down spouts on the front of the house. They are also installing a collection system on the three-car garage behind their house to help fill their backyard pool, but that's still a work in progress.

Every house in different and each collection system is a custom job, Wally Stasinowsky said. While Cheryl and Amber set up appointments and run the business from a home office, Wally and Jordan do the installs. They evaluate each job prior to beginning and quote a price for the client so there are no surprises. In most cases, Wally said, a system can be expanded later if a homeowner wants more down spouts connected.

A system like the one on their own house, two down spouts, a 560-gallon tank, 1/2 horsepower pump and one hose bib, costs approximately $2,800. But Living Water can get tanks ranging from 50 to 1,000 gallons.

"One guy in the Outback had 27,000 gallons of storage and lived off it all year," Wally Stasinowsky said.

Living Water is starting small with residential systems added to existing houses, but Cheryl said installing collection systems on new construction would be even easier because the storage tanks could be buried before the sod and sprinkler systems go down.

Eventually, she said, she'd like to see whole subdivisions built with rain capture systems to collect water running off of every impervious surface including roads and sidewalks. And the systems could potentially be scaled up for large commercial buildings and apartment buildings.

"You don't need drinking water to flush your toilet, water your lawn or fill your pool," Cheryl Stasinowsky said. "We look at everything now and say 'look at all that water being wasted.'"

The company has a Web site at www.livingwater-rainharvesting.com.