Rain Barrels

Take a look around the Internet, and you'll find official looking websites telling you you can put rain barrel water on your garden. Other sites say that's not a good idea, as the toxic chemicals from tar shingles and their additives leach out into the water, accumulate in the soil, and can get into your vegetables and fruiting trees. Then you'll come across people saying they've been doing it for years, and it hasn't had any negative effects.

My suggestion is that if you want to do more than water your ornamental plants, do some research on your own, and decide what the best approach is for you. Microbes and fungi in the soil do a great job breaking down trace toxins, but it's really up to you to make the call.

You may consider building a slow bio sand filter, which you can find plans for online. Step by step, we can all push out of our current realm of knowledge and begin the process of transforming our own lives and as a result, our wider culture, toward one of greater freedom, sustainability, and empowerment through active solutions.

Everything I've seen on the Internet says that water directly from a rain barrel should not be consumed due to the leaching roofing materials and the bacteria that will accumulate in the barrel. If you are gung ho about collecting water for consumption, there are ways to do it, but understand the risks, and do some further reading on using a slow sand filter, ten stage filters, and ultra violet purification.

Even if you only water ornamentals with your rain barrel, you'll still conserve water and save money! Also, keep your eyes open for gadgets that can purify the water. One promising invention which I don't believe is for sale at this point is the Slingshot Water Purifier by Dean Kamen.

Rain barrels can be purchased online from between $70.00 to several hundred dollars, depending on the model.

If you are buying materials to make a rain barrel, the most expensive component is the barrel itself, which if purchased may make the project not worth doing . However, it is possible to find them for free or at a discount. We contacted a nearby coca-cola bottling plant and asked if they could give us three 55 gallon food grade syrup drums. Make sure they are food grade, as the one's we ended up getting contained caustics (even though we had asked for syrup barrels). This created the added step of cleaning out the barrel. The rest of the materials I got from a hardware store and a local boat supply store.

I used my drill to punch a hole in the crease between the lid of the barrel and the body of the barrel it is fused to. I used a jigsaw with a plastic cutting blade to remove the lid, being careful to keep the cut even. I cleaned out the barrel as best as I could, but if you have a food grade barrel, this is not as critical. Instead of removing the lid, you could cut a hole in the top of the barrel for the water to enter.

I turned the barrels upside down and traced a circle on a piece of plywood to create two new lids which I cut out with the jigsaw. One of these lids I cut a rectangular hole in and attached some screen by sandwiching it between the lid and some scrap wood that I screwed together. You may be able to get away with staple gunning the screen down to the wood. The screen will keep mosquitoes and debris out of the barrel.

I used a spade bit drill bit to put a hole near the bottom of both barrels which would be used to attach the hose bib or spigot to the barrels. Another hole in each barrel was drilled midway up the barrels to attach a hose between the two so that one would overflow into the other. The water will equalize between the two barrels as the first one overflows into the second. A final hole was put near the top of one barrel for an overflow hose. The two barrels were connected to each other by using the marine glue to attach a thru hull through the holes I drilled midway up the barrel. A length of hose attached one thru hull to the other. The third thru hull was glued into the hole at the top of the barrel for the overflow hose. This hose I ran into the underground drain pipe that the down spout normally emptied into. If you don't have this, make sure to have a long enough overflow hose so as to keep the water from getting near the foundation of the house. The hose bibs were attached by putting one rubber washer on each pipe nipple, screwing on the hose bib to the pipe nipple, inserting that through the hole near the bottom of the barrel, then attaching the remaining rubber washers and screwing the lock nuts into place. The holes you drill may need to be sanded down a bit with the dremel sander in order for the thru holes or pipe nipples to fit through. Just be sure not to over do it.

To put the barrels in place, cut the downspout preferably with a rotary cutoff tool such as a dremel tool. You could also use tin snips, but the edges will be jagged. Take the elbow part of the removed section of downspout and attach it along with the excess downspout so that it hangs just above the opening to your rain barrel. I used a screwdriver to crimp the corners and make the downspout fit into the excess section. As you are figuring where to cut off the downspout, also figure in the height of the cinder blocks along with the 2x4's cut to size, which create the shelf for the barrel to sit on. Make this barrel as level as possible with the barrels at an even height. The barrels could be a danger if tipped.

These plans were adapted from looking at various rain barrel plans on the instructables website.

The water from the barrels can fill watering cans or gallon jugs with a pin hole punctured on a bottom corner, which can then function as a sort of inexpensive, portable, drip irrigation. If you are able to get your water up on a hillside or some sort of platform, perhaps fifteen to twenty feet above your garden level, you could install a gravity fed irrigation system with soaker hoses or drip lines. This will take some trial and error to see how long you can make the lines to sustain necessary pressure all the way through. The result of drip irrigation, however, is a method that delivers water to the roots and prevents excess water loss from evaporation.