By Sarah Gaffney, Sunset Idea House program manager

Okay, so this is not your typical Idea House glamour shot, but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes wow here that you typically don't see during an Idea House tour. What we have here is the installation of our rainwater harvesting system at the Monterey Idea House. The cisterns, from Triton Stormwater Solutions, collect rain and storm water that will be re-used as a gray water source for irrigation and toilet flushing. Made of soy resin, the cisterns hold more than 125,000 gallons of water! That's enough water to irrigate the 1/2-acre landscape for an entire year. The cisterns are now buried six feet under (no pun intended) what eventually will be the driveway at the house.