Rain Barrels

With the continuing drought, I need some way to save the few remaining plants I have in my yard. What better way than a rain barrel, especially one that I can make myself thanks to an OWASA workshop. It was fun and easy.

Here's what the finished product looks like. It began with a 55- gallon barrel, provided by Mark Ray Rain Barrels. Mark had pre-drilled the holes, one for the spigot and one for the overflow valve, so all we had to do was install the hardware. Apparently these barrels are not only useful, but they are easily obtained through NC Wastetraders. The only problem is that they were originally used to store food products. The one I selected had a distinct eau de dill pickles.

The tricky part of making this barrel is installing the spigot. While the spigot itself simply screws into the predrilled hole, it's necessary to put a washer on the backside of the spigot to keep it in place and leak free. That means.....crawling into the barrel to get to the backside of the spigot. Could anyone ask for a better photo opportunity?

For every 1,000 square feet of roof, one inch of rain produces 625 gallons of water. I'm going to need to make a couple of more barrels to collect even a portion of the runoff from my roof. Unfortunately, we're not expected to get that much rain for the next several months so I've got some time.