Project 1: Build Your Own Rain Barrels

Why would you want to do this? To save money on your water bill and to provide your plants with a chemical-free resource.

Why wouldn’t you want to do this? You don’t have room for a rain barrel or don’t have plants that need supplemental water.

Is there an easier way? You can buy a premade rain barrel, but that can be much more expensive than constructing one yourself. The second easiest way is to use a kit to turn your own barrel into a rain barrel, but again, you’ll spend more than you probably need to.

Cost comparison: The materials for a homemade version cost less than half of what even an inexpensive prefab rain barrel costs. Try to find the 55-gallon drum secondhand; warehouses often give away food-grade barrels or sell them for a small fee.

Skills needed: Basic construction know-how—drilling holes, cutting off a downspout if necessary, installing simple plumbing pieces.

Further refinements/learn more about it: You can find filtration devices that clean the collected water, and many people have gone so far as to collect rainwater in cisterns for use in their home plumbing systems. The following resources can help you get started: Water Storage (Oasis Design, 2005) by Art Ludwig; Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged (Tank Town, 2005) by Suzy Banks and Richard Heinichen; RainHarvest Systems, www.rainharvest.com.

Although we live in a very wet climate, we still have several months each year during which water is considered a scarce commodity. This dry season coincides with the time when plants need the most water for their optimal growth. Using rain barrels to collect water against times of need not only saves money but also provides you with water that is better for your plants. Rainwater is free of the additives and chemicals used in municipal filtration processes, and it takes only one good rainstorm to fill the barrel back up.

You can cut a hole in the top, if needed, for the downspout.

There are several issues to consider before you begin this project. First is the opaqueness of the barrels you use. I bought white food-grade 55-gallon drums, and although they seem opaque, enough sunlight can get through them to encourage the growth of algae in the water. This is not harmful to the plants that I water, but it can get smelly and plug up the spigot. My solution was to paint the barrels black with special plastic-surface spray paint, but I advise getting colored barrels, as dark as possible, if you can.

The second issue is how you will deal with possible overflow. You can likely run your downspout directly into the top of the barrel because most barrels have big screw-top openings. (If your downspout is too large or the wrong shape to fit the opening, you can cut a larger hole.) Be aware, though, that a heavy rainstorm can fill a barrel in just a couple of hours, and the barrel will overflow if the water has no outlet. Drilling a hole in the side of the barrel at the top will control the overflow, but water spilling out of the barrel may cause problems—problems that the downspout is supposed to solve in the first place.

There are two easy solutions: One is to use a diverter, a device that is inserted into the downspout on one end and into the barrel on the other; it diverts water from the downspout into the barrel until the barrel is full, then reroutes the water back down the downspout. The other is to drill the upper hole in the side of the barrel but instead of leaving it open, run a hose from it to wherever you’d like the extra water to go (ideally, away from your foundation). This upper hole can also be used to link several rain barrels with hose pipe so that when one barrel is full, the water will run into an adjacent barrel.

The third issue to consider is location of the barrel. A rain barrel is a rather large piece of outdoor “furniture” and not terribly attractive (if appearance matters to you). It will obviously need to go next to or under a downspout, and therefore against an outer wall of the house, probably near a corner. Make sure that the ground underneath the barrel is solid and level—once the barrel is full, you will not be able to move it. A gallon of water weighs more than 8 pounds, so the barrel will weigh about 500 pounds when full, and you do not want it to sink, lean, or fall over. You can imagine what would happen!

Finally, think about how you want to access the water in the barrel. If you water your plants by hand, you’ll need to be able to fit a watering can under the bottom spigot. In this case, consider raising the barrel up on blocks or some sort of platform for easy access to the spigot. Whatever you place the barrel on should be strong and stable. If you just want to run a pipe or hose straight from the spigot, you might be able to sit the barrel directly on the ground—but only if the water’s destination is lower than the barrel’s bottom. Keep in mind that water only flows downward—if the distribution end of your hose is higher than the bottom of the barrel, the water won’t flow out. I’ve made that mistake, and, believe me, you do not want to be standing in your yard with a full rain barrel and a hose that’s bone dry. Now, let’s get started!

Materials:

•Plastic food-grade 55-gallon drum (metal drums eventually rust and are more difficult to deal with)

•Threaded hose spigot

•Drill, with bit slightly smaller than the spigot threading

•Hacksaw or fine-toothed saw

•Optional: Rubber washer for spigot

•Optional: Gutter/downspout diverter or diverter kit (nice to have)

•Optional: Bricks or cinder blocks

Step 1: Drill a hole in the side of the barrel, approximately 3–4 inches up from the bottom. The hole should be slightly smaller than the diameter of the threads on your hose spigot to ensure a tight fit when you screw the spigot in.

Step 2: Place the barrel where it will live.

Step 3: Drill a hole in the side of the barrel approximately 2–3 inches down from the top. Decide exactly where to put this hole based on where the barrel will sit in relation to the downspout and where you want the spigot to aim. If using a diverter, make the hole in accordance with the size of the tube that you’ll attach between the downspout and rain barrel. If you’ll be using a hose in this hole for overflow protection, the hole should be the right size to insert the hose connection snugly.

Step 4: Mark where to cut the downspout. If you are putting it directly into the barrel, it should extend a few inches below the top of the barrel. If you are using a diverter, make sure the bottom of the downspout is level with or slightly above the height of the upper barrel inflow hole. Use your saw to cut the downspout to the proper length.

Step 5: Place the barrel on its side, and screw the spigot into the lower hole. You can put a rubber washer on the spigot so it will be squeezed between the barrel and tap when the spigot is completely inserted. Try to do this step only once, as threads will be carved into the plastic by screwing the spigot in, and it will never be as tight as during the first insertion. Make sure that the spigot is oriented in the proper direction when you do the final turns.

Attach the spigot into the lower hole, ensuring a tight fit.

Step 6: If using a diverter kit, follow its directions to attach the diverter to your downspout.

Step 7: Level and turn the barrel to get it into position. Now is the time to make adjustments, before the barrel fills up. Insert the downspout or attach the diverter tube barrel.

Step 8: Wait for a rainstorm.

Additional Advice

•If you want to link multiple barrels, drill a second hole in your barrel, a few inches down from the top, on the side where the next barrel will sit. Connect the barrels with a short length of pipe or hose between those two holes—when the first barrel is full, the water will overflow into the second. Be sure there is a spigot on the bottom of the second barrel as well. If you want to have only one outflow (spigot on just one of the barrels), link your barrels with pipes at the barrel bottoms, just slightly higher than the spigot height. They’ll fill at the same time and drain simultaneously.

•If you find that the standing water in your barrels is encouraging mosquitoes, you can float “mosquito disks” on top of the water; these disks release a biopesticide that kills mosquito larva.

•If you have small children, be certain that there is no way for them to climb onto or fall into your barrels. When full, a rain barrel can be as dangerous as a swimming pool for small children, perhaps even more so because barrels are not placed in focal points in the yard or watched as closely.

•If you live in a region with cold winters, disconnect the diverter and empty your rain barrel before freezing temperatures occur. Another option is to drain your barrel partway to allow for the water to expand when it freezes. If it does not have space to expand, the water can cause a plastic barrel to bulge and bow, which can knock it off balance and take the downspout and gutter with it. The barrel will regain roughly the same shape when the water thaws, but it may need to be rebalanced. Metal barrels expand irreparably, often bursting at the seams.