Rain barrels are not cheap. When we decided to put them up around our house, we talked about different ways to do it. We knew where we could get those white plastic 55 gallon drums for $15, and decided to try it with one of those. The result was our first prototype.
It's not pretty. (smile)
But it is very functional. It is of course linked up with the downspout via PVC pipe and various connectors. One downside to the barrel that we hadn't anticipated is the lids of these are permanently sealed on, and the only openings are two 2" openings in the lids, which both have threaded caps to close them up. Although it turned out to be more of a bonus than a downside, as we were able to use those openings for our rain barrel use without having to hassle with cutting holes in the barrel (at least not at the top; the spigot at the bottom is another story, for another time). PVC pipe comes in a 2" diameter, which we were able to connect directly into those pre-made openings easily. The in-flow pipe from the downspout goes into one, and we used the other for an overflow.
Initially I questioned whether the overflow, having it's PVC pipe actually rising up out of the barrel, then making a turn and angling down the way it does, would work. I was concerned that instead of acting as an overflow, the water would not have the pressure to rise up through that pipe, and would instead just back up in the downspout. I was mistaken. The pressure of that much water (when the barrel is full - obviously, the only time the overflow matters) easily forces it right up out of that pipe. And it follows the overflow pipe instead of backing up into the downspout because the overflow pipe is the path of least resistance - it's easier for the water to make it up over that small obstacle and then flow down and out, than it is to back all the way up a 45 degree pipe to the downspout.
I guess it's a matter of physics (not my strong point) - water's only going to rise to the highest level at which it can be contained, which in this system is the top of the overflow pipe, not up the downspout.
Right now the overflow pipe just kind of hangs there, and is directed out into the front yard (away from the house foundation - important!) by way of the black flex pipe. We intend to fix that, using a U-shaped connector to run the overflow pipe down alongside the barrel, then along the ground out to the yard, so it looks a little nicer - just didn't get that far yet.
But more importantly, due to the volume of water that is collected here, we intend to install at least one, and hopefully two more rain barrels at this location, connected together, so the overflow only kicks in after all three barrels are full - thereby wasting far less of our rain water collection potential. That's a project for next spring, however. This was, like I said, the prototype to see if this would even work.
The support for the pipe coming from the downspout is going to be fixed too. It wasn't supposed to be a piece of chain,we had something else rigged up, but it failed, and since we needed something quick on the spur of the moment (this was getting installed in the middle of a storm, ironically enough), Greg just threw this piece of chain on it. We'll do something a little nicer with that when we re-set this up next spring, as well.
The advantage of the downspout draining directly into this PVC pipe is we catch every drop of water coming out of that downspout. ( We did save the cut-off piece of downspout, so we can re-connect it to the in-ground drain pipe when we take this down in the fall. Or, we could use the same PVC pipe in a different configuration, too.)
But, as I said, even when the barrel is leveled and the overflow pipe is fixed and the chain replaced, the whole system isn't going to be all that asthetically pleasing. That's fine with me for most locations around the house. And it's economical - the barrel cost $15, and the various pieces of pipe and connectors cost maybe $25 to $35.
But when it came to the rain barrel by the garage, I wanted something that looked nicer, because it's much more in plain view. So I decided to spring for a store-bought rain barrel for this location.
It cost $100, and I'm not nearly as impressed with it's functionality.
For starters, it uses a diverter system attached to the downspout, which is supposed to function as both the inflow and overflow. When the barrel gets full, the water's supposed to simply bypass the barrel and continue on down the downspout.
Problem is, the diverter system looks like this on the inside.
There is a large opening in the center, then a channel around the inside edge. The downspout edges fit down into that channel, leaving the whole center open to continue on down the downspout and not divert to the rain barrel. When we were installing this, at first we couldn't figure out how that was supposed to work.
Then, it dawned on me - or so I thought. In anything but the most torrential of downpours, rain probably wouldn't come down the downspout in a big solid "tube of water" in the center of the downspout. It would tend to cling to the inside surface of the downspout, and run down the sides that way (on the inside). So the channel in the diverter made sense - when the rain running down the inside surfaces of the downspout hit the diverter channel, it would be funneled into the hose which would carry it to the barrel. When the barrel was full, and the hose filled up, that water would have no where to go but to overflow the channel and continue on down the downspout.
So far so good. Except it's kind of flawed.
It rained Wednesday night, not a big storm or downpour, but a pretty good 10 or 15 minutes of steady rain. I went out to see how the barrel did. I was delighted to find it almost 1/3 full - just shy of the spigot (which is too high up, another design flaw) - so though there's water in it, it's not even useable yet. But it did work and it wasn't a very big rain, so that was good.
Problem was, while I was standing there, I could still see some water trickling out of the end of the downspout. The diverter system wasn't catching it all, and that was in a light rain. I can imagine that in a heavier rain a lot more rainwater would be escaping down the downspout.
Okay, it's probably not that big a deal - it looked like a small amount of water - except for two things.
First, when I initially considered rainwater collection barrels, I didn't take it all that seriously because I completely underestimated the amount of water a roof sheds during a rain. I really thought it would be such a minimal amount as to be barely worth the trouble, if you didn't live some place where it rained all the time. I based this in part on seeing the water coming out of the downspout after a rain, which looked like a small amount to me. I was incredibly wrong, as our first rainbarrel filled almost half-way the first time it rained after we installed it. I have practically drained the barrel watering my plants, then the very next time we had a decent rain, the barrel would be full or almost full again. It has really surprised me.
So I no longer underestimate just how much water what looks like 'a little trickle' can add up to be.
Second, if I'm going to have rainwater collection system, I'd like to collect as much as possible. Obviously the barrels only fill when it's raining, so when we get those weeks with no rain, I'd like as much backup water available as possible. I don't like 'wasting' any of it!
Also, one unique problem I have is that I have things planted underneath the awnings, which mean that they often get no natural watering from rain at all - unless it rains really hard and soaks the whole bed, or the rain is slanting in somewhat. In light but steady rains, those back areas under the awnings remain dry. Which means that some of those plants are going to rely on nothing but rainwater-barrel-water to get watered at all - which means I need all that I can get.
So it kind of bugs me that for $100 it's not collecting all the rain water. The homemade PVC pipe version does collect every drop of the water.
We may look into modifying the store-bought barrel next year. I can still use the barrel, as it's nicer to look at, but modify it's diverter system to something closer to what we set up on the other downspout, with a PVC 'funnel' and pipe to capture all the water.
Or, I could consider a way to capture the water coming out of the bottom of the downspout and divert it directly to the plants behind the awning drip line. That's a thought. But - why over-engineer it.
This is the only place I am concerned about using a commercial rain barrel. There are several other locations around the house that are destined to be future homes of rain barrels, but they are all out of sight enough that I am not planning on using store-bought barrels for those . We'll continue on with our $15 barrels and PVC pipe arrangement. So this is the only one I have to rig to work better.
But we probably will be adding one more (store-bought, 'pretty') rain barrel here as well. There's a very large expanse of roof right here that only has this one downspout, so the water collection potential here is too great to pass up. But the system to hook them together is far more effective than the original diverter system - just running a piece of hose between the two - so that shouldn't need any fixing.
So that's the story of two rain barrels. The store-bought version probably cost about twice as much (though you might be able to make a home-made one even cheaper depending on what you already had on hand). It does look considerably nicer, but I'm far more impressed with the functionality of our homemade system, and am astounded by the amount of water it collects.
Some time I'll do another post on the lower half of the rain barrels - how we rigged our hose system to make the best use of the collected rainwater, and probably how we're going to lower the height of the spigot on the store-bought barrel to be more efficient.
It's not pretty. (smile)
But it is very functional. It is of course linked up with the downspout via PVC pipe and various connectors. One downside to the barrel that we hadn't anticipated is the lids of these are permanently sealed on, and the only openings are two 2" openings in the lids, which both have threaded caps to close them up. Although it turned out to be more of a bonus than a downside, as we were able to use those openings for our rain barrel use without having to hassle with cutting holes in the barrel (at least not at the top; the spigot at the bottom is another story, for another time). PVC pipe comes in a 2" diameter, which we were able to connect directly into those pre-made openings easily. The in-flow pipe from the downspout goes into one, and we used the other for an overflow.
Initially I questioned whether the overflow, having it's PVC pipe actually rising up out of the barrel, then making a turn and angling down the way it does, would work. I was concerned that instead of acting as an overflow, the water would not have the pressure to rise up through that pipe, and would instead just back up in the downspout. I was mistaken. The pressure of that much water (when the barrel is full - obviously, the only time the overflow matters) easily forces it right up out of that pipe. And it follows the overflow pipe instead of backing up into the downspout because the overflow pipe is the path of least resistance - it's easier for the water to make it up over that small obstacle and then flow down and out, than it is to back all the way up a 45 degree pipe to the downspout.
I guess it's a matter of physics (not my strong point) - water's only going to rise to the highest level at which it can be contained, which in this system is the top of the overflow pipe, not up the downspout.
Right now the overflow pipe just kind of hangs there, and is directed out into the front yard (away from the house foundation - important!) by way of the black flex pipe. We intend to fix that, using a U-shaped connector to run the overflow pipe down alongside the barrel, then along the ground out to the yard, so it looks a little nicer - just didn't get that far yet.
But more importantly, due to the volume of water that is collected here, we intend to install at least one, and hopefully two more rain barrels at this location, connected together, so the overflow only kicks in after all three barrels are full - thereby wasting far less of our rain water collection potential. That's a project for next spring, however. This was, like I said, the prototype to see if this would even work.
The support for the pipe coming from the downspout is going to be fixed too. It wasn't supposed to be a piece of chain,we had something else rigged up, but it failed, and since we needed something quick on the spur of the moment (this was getting installed in the middle of a storm, ironically enough), Greg just threw this piece of chain on it. We'll do something a little nicer with that when we re-set this up next spring, as well.
The advantage of the downspout draining directly into this PVC pipe is we catch every drop of water coming out of that downspout. ( We did save the cut-off piece of downspout, so we can re-connect it to the in-ground drain pipe when we take this down in the fall. Or, we could use the same PVC pipe in a different configuration, too.)
But, as I said, even when the barrel is leveled and the overflow pipe is fixed and the chain replaced, the whole system isn't going to be all that asthetically pleasing. That's fine with me for most locations around the house. And it's economical - the barrel cost $15, and the various pieces of pipe and connectors cost maybe $25 to $35.
But when it came to the rain barrel by the garage, I wanted something that looked nicer, because it's much more in plain view. So I decided to spring for a store-bought rain barrel for this location.
It cost $100, and I'm not nearly as impressed with it's functionality.
For starters, it uses a diverter system attached to the downspout, which is supposed to function as both the inflow and overflow. When the barrel gets full, the water's supposed to simply bypass the barrel and continue on down the downspout.
Problem is, the diverter system looks like this on the inside.
There is a large opening in the center, then a channel around the inside edge. The downspout edges fit down into that channel, leaving the whole center open to continue on down the downspout and not divert to the rain barrel. When we were installing this, at first we couldn't figure out how that was supposed to work.
Then, it dawned on me - or so I thought. In anything but the most torrential of downpours, rain probably wouldn't come down the downspout in a big solid "tube of water" in the center of the downspout. It would tend to cling to the inside surface of the downspout, and run down the sides that way (on the inside). So the channel in the diverter made sense - when the rain running down the inside surfaces of the downspout hit the diverter channel, it would be funneled into the hose which would carry it to the barrel. When the barrel was full, and the hose filled up, that water would have no where to go but to overflow the channel and continue on down the downspout.
So far so good. Except it's kind of flawed.
It rained Wednesday night, not a big storm or downpour, but a pretty good 10 or 15 minutes of steady rain. I went out to see how the barrel did. I was delighted to find it almost 1/3 full - just shy of the spigot (which is too high up, another design flaw) - so though there's water in it, it's not even useable yet. But it did work and it wasn't a very big rain, so that was good.
Problem was, while I was standing there, I could still see some water trickling out of the end of the downspout. The diverter system wasn't catching it all, and that was in a light rain. I can imagine that in a heavier rain a lot more rainwater would be escaping down the downspout.
Okay, it's probably not that big a deal - it looked like a small amount of water - except for two things.
First, when I initially considered rainwater collection barrels, I didn't take it all that seriously because I completely underestimated the amount of water a roof sheds during a rain. I really thought it would be such a minimal amount as to be barely worth the trouble, if you didn't live some place where it rained all the time. I based this in part on seeing the water coming out of the downspout after a rain, which looked like a small amount to me. I was incredibly wrong, as our first rainbarrel filled almost half-way the first time it rained after we installed it. I have practically drained the barrel watering my plants, then the very next time we had a decent rain, the barrel would be full or almost full again. It has really surprised me.
So I no longer underestimate just how much water what looks like 'a little trickle' can add up to be.
Second, if I'm going to have rainwater collection system, I'd like to collect as much as possible. Obviously the barrels only fill when it's raining, so when we get those weeks with no rain, I'd like as much backup water available as possible. I don't like 'wasting' any of it!
Also, one unique problem I have is that I have things planted underneath the awnings, which mean that they often get no natural watering from rain at all - unless it rains really hard and soaks the whole bed, or the rain is slanting in somewhat. In light but steady rains, those back areas under the awnings remain dry. Which means that some of those plants are going to rely on nothing but rainwater-barrel-water to get watered at all - which means I need all that I can get.
So it kind of bugs me that for $100 it's not collecting all the rain water. The homemade PVC pipe version does collect every drop of the water.
We may look into modifying the store-bought barrel next year. I can still use the barrel, as it's nicer to look at, but modify it's diverter system to something closer to what we set up on the other downspout, with a PVC 'funnel' and pipe to capture all the water.
Or, I could consider a way to capture the water coming out of the bottom of the downspout and divert it directly to the plants behind the awning drip line. That's a thought. But - why over-engineer it.
This is the only place I am concerned about using a commercial rain barrel. There are several other locations around the house that are destined to be future homes of rain barrels, but they are all out of sight enough that I am not planning on using store-bought barrels for those . We'll continue on with our $15 barrels and PVC pipe arrangement. So this is the only one I have to rig to work better.
But we probably will be adding one more (store-bought, 'pretty') rain barrel here as well. There's a very large expanse of roof right here that only has this one downspout, so the water collection potential here is too great to pass up. But the system to hook them together is far more effective than the original diverter system - just running a piece of hose between the two - so that shouldn't need any fixing.
So that's the story of two rain barrels. The store-bought version probably cost about twice as much (though you might be able to make a home-made one even cheaper depending on what you already had on hand). It does look considerably nicer, but I'm far more impressed with the functionality of our homemade system, and am astounded by the amount of water it collects.
Some time I'll do another post on the lower half of the rain barrels - how we rigged our hose system to make the best use of the collected rainwater, and probably how we're going to lower the height of the spigot on the store-bought barrel to be more efficient.
1 comment:
Go with the cheap plastic 55 gallon drums, then get some of the Krylon spray paint for plastics (Rustoleum makes a version too, and some of theirs has that textured finish). Cheaper, more functional, and will look pretty when you are done with it.
Rhys
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