Rain barrels

[huntoften]

I'd imagine every major city has an entrepreneur making good rain barrels. I have one I found on craigslist...she makes the and sells them for $50. They are an excellent value I think and are much safer than the trash barrels if you have kids around. She only cuts out a small square out of the top and puts a pool filter basket in it. My 4 barrels do well...I wish I had 4 more actually! Just go to your farm and garden section on craigslist and search for them...you might find just what you need.

[Barbee]

Check with your county Soil and Water Conservation District. Ours sells rain barrels dirt cheap.
I have a fancy one for one of my downspouts (the rest go to my well) and then we use giant above ground cisterns for the barn roofs. Really giant and ugly, but they provide the water needed to spray our crops.

[korney19]

Look for food factories in your area... some use huge volumes of apple cider vinegar or apple juice in the processing of other foods and get it in 55 gallon food-grade plastic drums. Mine are blue.

Also dairy farmers get a solution that cleans the milking equipment that I believe may be in food-grade white 55 gallon drums.

[PaulF]

Update on earlier posting. I installed spigots near the bottom of my plastic rain barrels and had some plastic window screening left over from a screen replacement and bungee corded a screen section on the top of the open end. I found a downspout end with an attached flex hose on the end. I cut my downspout off a foot above the barrel and installed the flex hose piece and put two barrels at a back corner of the house and when one is full the flex can be switched to the other. The screen keeps out the leaves, squirrels, insects and kids.

[NetAddict50]

I'm not sure if anyone was answering my question or elaborating on another member's post, but my question was if I purchased an already made rain barrel (complete - ready to use) what should I look for? There are so many out there and I don't necessarily want the most expensive, but I want a good one. Does the material matter, the size, how many spigots, etc.? I've seen collapsible ones, as well. THANKSl

[Barbee]

I can tell you what my fancy one has, what I use, etc. Maybe that will help you pick/make one? Mine is made of that heavy plastic stuff, so being in Ohio, I do have to bring it in for winter after draining it.
Here's the features mine has:
**I have a spigot near the bottom. Neat feature, as I can put a tall watering can under there and get 3 gallons of water at a pop.
**It has a hose that comes out of the bottom of it, and fits thru a little channel on the bottom side. The hose has an on/off thingie on it. You could hook a big hose onto it if needed, but I didn't use this feature much until it was time to drain the barrel to put it up at the end of the year. Then it was wonderful as it drained every speck of water out.
**It has an overflow valve near the top at the back of the barrel. This can be hooked to a hose and run down into your downspout or diverted to wherever you want the overflow to run(even another rain barrel). Not something I used a lot, because I used the water up before it could get that full but something I think that's important overall.
The lid has a hole in it, which the downspout fits right into (after cutting the downspout off). Under the lid, is a screen that fits neatly on the barrel. This screen needs to be cleaned off occasionally, due to leaves, etc, collecting on it.
**NOTE** I do have to bring my rain barrel in for winter, which leaves my downspout about 6 feet off the ground. I drilled holes and installed chains with zip ties to divert that winter water run off into the downspout. Like old time rain chains. In the spring, it's just a matter of cutting the zip ties, storing the chains, and setting the barrel back in place.

[NetAddict50]

Thank you so much Barbee, but a question - what's the purpose of the rainchain and what does it drain into?

[Barbee]

The rain chain keeps the water that's coming out of the downspout from just pouring straight down and making a big gully wash at the foundation. It just basically slows the water down and makes it go into my drain so it can then go into the well.
This is just one small part of my roof that drains into my rain barrel. The other 3 downspouts that take the big load off the roof always go into the well.

[dice]

[rain chains]

A lot of places market rain chains as a fancy architectural
feature, make them out of copper, charge an arm and a leg
for them, etc, like these:
http://www.guttersupply.com/p-rain-c...s-copper.gstml

But rain chains can also simply be actual chains, like these,
and they don't have to be made of copper:
http://www.guttersupply.com/p-rain-c...nk-style.gstml

The idea is that the water coming out of the gutter just runs
down the outside of the chain. It does not matter how fast
it is coming out of the gutter. A gentle rain will just stream
down the outside of the chain, while the flow from a hard
rain will bounce off of the chain links as it makes its way down.

(One could probably make a cool one out of a piece of winch
cable, a bunch of small hose clamps, and old AOL cds.)

[Barbee]

OK, mine is just plain old aluminum chain like shown in the 2nd link. Stuff we had already. But it works good and it keeps my hubby from having to reattach the downspout. In other words, I can do this myself when it's time to drain the barrel for winter or put it back up in spring. My hubby is very busy both those times of the year and so I like to take care of things like that myself. That way, it gets done when I need it to get done

[Polar_Lace]

Ok Robin,

I'm giving you some links to help you out:

Gardening Volunteers Of South Texas Making Rain Water Barrel Demonstration

Rain Barrels and More: Just to give you Ideas about what kinds of parts you can probably find Locally.

~* Robin

[ovenbird]

I am making a rain chain out of lengths of red dogwood twigs. Don't know how long it will last, but it looks good and it is free!

I bought three barrels form midwestinternetsales ( Rain Barrels and More) and am very disappointed in how they work. I really want to use all of the rain coming off of my roof, if possible. If one barrel fills up I want the water to fill the second and third barrels efficiently, without water spilling right next to my foundation. You cannot connect their barrels inline with the overflow ports the barrels come with and hose sections they sell. The water transfer capacity is completely insufficient for all but the gentlest of rains. Their own person told me they don't work and he has had to modify them for his needs. And they will not do custom work.

Very disappointing attitude.

[recruiterg]

For those of you who have rainbarrels: do you use the runoff from your roof to water your tomato/vegetable gardens? We have asphalt shingles and I think the water may be somewhat contaminated...

[ovenbird]

I have never noticed anything oily floating on my roof rain water. I do get small gravel form the roof which gets caught in the screen wire in the lids of the barrels. In the past two years I have had very productive gardens which seem to like the roof rain water. This year I have not had to use rain barrel water from the roof as the rain levels have been more than adequate for the garden here in Iowa.

[RJ_Hythloday]

There are many threads on the web about different shingles contaminating rain barrel water. I haven't watered my main garden at all this year except at plant out. I do use the rain water for brewing AVCT and harvesting BIMs.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned car wash for free barrels. I haven't got them there but heard of many who have. I have olive barrels, craigslist was already mentioned. $20 is about right for empty barrels, some times as low as $10 maybe up to $30 if it includes a kit w/ spigot and screen which can all be purchased quite cheaply at the hardware store.

I've seen some really cool pics of painted ones and plan on painting mine at the end of the season when I drain them.

Not my pic