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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Rain Barrel

This past weekend we installed our rain barrel. For those who don't know, a rain barrel is a large tank that collects rain water runoff from your roof. Many places in the world use this water for drinking, bathing, or other household use, but you usually need special filters for that. We will be using our rain barrel water for watering the garden and the yard. This helps us reduce water usage, as well as deal with water runnoff.

We purchased our rain barrel from B. Lime Green - an eco-store in downtown Champaign. They get their rain barrels from Prairie Rain Harvester, Inc. Our barrel is made from a recycled 55 gallon vegetable oil drum. We pretty much followed the instructions for setting it all up, and here are the results!

Here is the before. Just a regular gutter downspout.


To begin, Bill digs a flat space right next to the gutter to place the barrel.


Next, he added a little sand to make things level.


You have to elevate the rain barrel a bit in order to get any pressure from the spout, so we placed the barrel on cinder blocks we had.


Next, cut the gutter.


Then, install the adjustable gutter extension to aim into the barrel opening.


We then filled in a little dirt around the cinder blocks.


Then, aim the overflow hose away from the foundation of the house.


And then you have a finished product!!

Already, after one day of light, but constant rain, the barrel is completely full!

Millions and millions of people live with out clean water to drink every day, yet we water our lawns with perfectly good water. Now is the time to conserve!

2 comments:

Jon said...

Bill not included

Devlin said...

Wow, very cool. My father-in-law is installing one at his house sometime soon. Perhaps we should do the same.

You guys are very productive this spring! (Probably always!)