My experiences with homemade rain barrels
Here at Green Daily, we've covered the topic of saving water with the installation of rain barrels on your home's gutters. This is something I've always been interested in trying, but just never got around to doing, until last month when I saw these simple instructions from Bill Volk, at our sister site, DIY Life.So I built one for myself, stretching a bit from Bill's plans for the sake of budget. I used a fairly new 32-gallon plastic trash can that I had already. I figured it would be good to experiment a bit with what I had, before committing to any major purchases. In retrospect, the garbage can is not thick enough for this project, but it was worth a try. I didn't add the spout at the bottom of the can because I figured it would not hold up well, so I'm happy I made that choice. Overall though, I'm very excited and surprised at how easy it was to construct and how quickly the 32 gallons fill up! I now plan to make more of these at different locations around the house, complete with better overflow systems that store the extra water. Once I realized just how much water is collected, even during a light rainfall, I feel like I'm wasting the rest that just flows out of the downspout!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-16-2008 @ 5:18PM
Victor Agreda Jr said...
Cool! Glad it worked out, nice to hear people are trying this.
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5-16-2008 @ 6:35PM
Evans said...
The Water Restoration Act of 2007, along with others, gives the federal government complete control over every waterway, river, stream, lake, aquifer, creek, slew, swamp, underground spring and even the rain that runs off your roof.
http://waronyou.com/2008/04/siezing-waterthe-water-restoration-act-of-2007/
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5-18-2008 @ 8:57AM
Robertisgreen said...
Very cool. I hope to add a barrel myself soon here in NY. Right now I use a large detergent container with a hole punched through top connected to the bottom of a gutter spout.
Water fallen from the sky is better for plants and gardens because it has gone through the hydrologic cycle.
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