Eight barrels, all hooked together, attached to the downspout of the gutter which runs from the roof of  the back deck.  A drip hose running out into the garden.  That was the plan.  Sounds simple enough.

First, we had to decide where to put 8 large barrels.  There was only one place, really: under the deck.  There is about 5′ of head room under there (enough to work), and the space is enclosed with lattice, so it would (theoretically) hide the barrels.  Plus, the downspout for the deck’s gutters came right down the outside corner of the deck — perfect for where we wanted to put the barrels.

Next, where to get the barrels.  We had heard, years ago, that Pepsi used large barrels and gave them away when they were empty (I said this was years ago.  No one gives anything away anymore).  Well, it was true.  They did do that — years ago.  Now they had a contract for someone to take them.

Next guess, restaurants.  Nope.  Ah, the phone book – under containers.  Bingo.   In fact, the company she talked with had several kinds, in several colors.  The 45 gallon ones she finally settled on cost $15 each.  They weren’t rain barrels, of course, so they had to be modified.  They were originally used to hold the “coating” for pills.   Probably the worst thing about them was that they were blue.  Dark green is always our preference for rain barrels, but … these weren’t really rain barrels.

The container place did have other barrels.  One was a terra cotta color, but it cost $38 each.  In fact, they would add all the hardware you needed to hook them together, but the final bill was $60 each, and they would deliver them all for another $25.  Sherry decided that she could do all of that herself.  So she kept my truck one day and the next thing you knew we were in the rainwater harvesting business.

Now, how to hook them together?   God bless the internet.  She found several sites that told how to do the job, even though each was slightly different.   She finally ended up sort of combining all their ideas and coming up with a design of her own.

She needed to have one place for the water to enter.  From there, it needed to travel to the other 7 barrels.  Once they were full, she needed to divert any overflow so that it didn’t just soak the ground under the deck (and eventually wind up in the basement).

She needed one place for the water to exit, on command.   In other words, she needed a hose to be attached to one of the barrels, so that it would empty ALL of the barrels.  Her solution was to attach all of the barrels at both the top and bottom — a larger hose connection at the top (pvc) and a smaller hose at the bottom, of each.

In theory, as she uses the hose, all of the water in all of the barrels should lower at the same rate in each barrel (water pressure).

To get these attachments attached, she needed to drill, glue, sand, etc.

But First…. she had to prepare a place to set the barrels. (Sorry, almost forgot this part).  The barrels needed a solid, level area so that they would be safe.  Unfortunately, we just gave our cement mixer to our daughter (we thought we had run out of cement projects.  NOTE TO SELF:  You never run out of cement projects).   Fortunately, the ground under the deck is pretty solid, so she built a two by four frame, filled it with sand and tamped it down really well.  It seems really safe.  Plus, they’re all grouped together (and connected), and they aren’t anywhere that could cause any damage (or injury) if one did happen to fall, which is not likely.

Anyway, getting back to the drilling, sawing, gluing and sanding part.  If you do this, be sure to do it in a ventilated area and wear gloves.  Some of this stuff is pretty caustic, so be careful.

All in all, it turned out pretty well.  It was a little more visible through the lattice than we thought it was going to be, so we have to come up with something to cover the blue.  Sherry built a drainage ditch for the overflow, but we haven’t tested that yet, so we’ll have to get back with you on that.  Otherwise, it looks great.  And it comes to 360 gallons of free water.  Well, okay, not free, but the longer we use it, the cheaper it will get.  And we expect to use it for a very long time.

In case you’re thinking about doing this, here’s what we spent:  $213.10, or an average of  $26.64 per barrel .   That doesn’t include gas for going to get the barrels and the hardware, but neither was very far away, so that was negligible.  It took quite a while, but she had never done it before.  She spent a lot of time figuring out how to do it, and refiguring how to do it after she actually started doing it.  We already had the material for the base (the sand and 2 x 4s), so we didn’t count that.  If you’re considering doing this, your individual configuration might be different, as well as the costs from any supplier you find.  Good luck.  We’ll do another post about how well it’s working.

Filed under: Our Garden, Water conservation