Rain Barrels

One thing I decided that I wanted very early in the process was rain barrels on either side of the house to catch water for garden use. I rarely water my outdoor plants, preferring to have those which are suited to the conditions here, but If I want to establish new plants or have a vegetable garden watering is essential at times. Plus I have indoor plants. After doing a lot of online research I determined a style that I liked and started looking at different brands. In the end, I decided to try and make one, since the theory isn't that complicated although, if our weather wasn't so mild most of the time, I might reconsider that.

The first step was to find the kind of barrel I wanted, not an easy task. I did find barrels at Carton Services and considered a couple of different types. Neither were just what I wanted and I lucked out finding this one, which is the style I'd been looking for. However it's the only I've seen there, so I got another type for the other one.

My plan was to use PVC pipe and brass fittings to create the necessary elements: a drain pipe with a spigot for getting water out of the barrel and an overflow pipe with a threaded end for when it fills up. I can attach a regular garden hose to either one for convenience or to direct the overflow water. I also drilled a series of 1/2" holes in the top and covered them with screen to keep out trash and insects.

Then it was just a matter of making the fittings water tight. It worked very well, although if I had it to do over I would offset the drain from the overflow by 90 degrees. Why will become evident soon.

The barrel went in before the gutters, so that I could have the gutters run directly to it, a pointless exercise because the gutter guys came and went without notifying anyone that they were here. The rain barrels had been moved away from the house by the siding guy, and had not yet been moved back. The gutter installers simply ran the gutters to where the barrels were sitting two feet from the house. It's not a big deal, but amusing.

In a supreme occurrence of serendipity, I found a composter for $5 at a garage sale made from the same barrel that my rain barrel was, so I bought it. It has a couple of holes I'll need to plug but otherwise should work fine.

This was where the positioning of the overflow and drain became important. If they had been offset, I would simply have put the same fittings into the composter as I already had into my first barrel, with the addition of a threaded inflow pipe that I could connect to the overflow from the first barrel but, because the overflow and spigot were together this would have made the spigot inaccessible.

So I moved my first barrel to the end of the chain, plugged one of the holes in the composter, and used the other for an overflow. Then I drilled a new hole for an offset spigot. I used an eight inch length of garden hose to connect them together, and a longer piece of hose to connect the barrels to my drain system. Eventually, I hope to connect it to a soaker hose instead for all but the wettest weather, but the flower beds need to be finished before that happens.

On the other side of the house I used a different style of barrel, which hasn't worked as successfully. The broad shallow top seems to constantly plug with leaves and other refuse so that water runs off it instead of into the barrel, and it attracts algae and consequently mosquitos, probably because it is in the sun and is somewhat transparent.

I waited a long time to retrofit it, hoping that I'd find another of the other style, but so far no luck. I would like to put a second barrel here as well, but until I finish laying out the new garden I'm not sure where I'd put it. I still need to find a place to put stairs for the garage deck.