All summer long I’ve been wanting to get a rain barrel, but the ready made ones I’ve seen average around $100 so I’ve been hoping to build my own. We lucked out and had someone give us a large barrel, up until then I was planing to buy a big heavy trash can to use. Here’s what the barrel looks like, there are two plastic plugs that screw into the holes that are not in picture.
The down side is we don’t know what was in it, I’ve heard you need food barrels to make sure you don’t get any weird chemicals. I am going to chance it and just try to wash it out real good.
Next I’ve been watching videos on Youtube about how to make one, there are lots of them but it gets a little confusing because everyone does it a little differently. Here’s where we run into our first problems. Since there is no one way to design your barrel, there is not specific set of parts, in fact just about every video I watched used different parts. Add to that vague descriptions of what those parts were, and vague descriptions of how they are constructing the barrel I quickly see we will have to wing this a bit. Well really more that a bit. That’s no problem for me, I am used to not knowing what I am doing, but my husband Lee doesn’t like to start a big project that way. He’s convinced that even if we get the barrel built it’s not going to work as a way to water the garden. Specifically a hose attached to the bottom will not have enough pressure to get water to my plant beds. I am going with the assumption that since rain barrels are getting so popular the must work, a silly assumption I know but since its what I want to believe that’s what I am going with. Since he believes it wont work he’s assuming we’ll waste our time and money and then it will be a ugly lawn ornament. So no surprise this difference in philosophy lead to a lot of friction when we went to Home Depot and tried to design it while picking thru parts available. Fortunately there was a very helpful co worker at the Depot, he really helped me narrow down options (though PLEASE don’t assume you can go to a store NOT knowing what you want and the sales person will be able to figure it out for you! That really pissed the sales person off!), made suggestions, and walked me around to find the parts. I may have been irritated that Lee was being so negative and difficult, but he did point out some areas where my design plans were really fantasy and would not work at all. Like how is the hose spigot held into the barrel? The videos gloss over that. So we spent a long time going back and forth in the Depot, arguing. And the cost was adding up. By the time we left we had spent about $50 and still didn’t get all we needed, the hole saw bits were too expensive for a one time use so we were hoping to find someone to borrow it from, and we needed a jig saw to cut hole for inflow (the design we ended up with had us flipping the barrel over and drilling holes in the plugs for the hose spigot, you’ll see why later). Of course we had no idea if our design would work, we might build it and be out the $50. Made me wonder if just coughing up the $100 wouldn’t have been a better idea. Time+aggravation+cost of materials=$100? Maybe. My motto, failure is always an option. I don’t mind the time being wasted, but really don’t want to waste the money, and I don’t think we can try to build it then if it doesn’t work return the parts. Well some of them maybe.
Well since I am too stubborn to stop now, onward and upward! Since others are so vague on what parts they used I will try to be more specific. Here’s a pic of what we got at the Depot.
Part of the problem is these parts don’t have names on them and I don’t know what they are used for normally, but I;ll do my best.
Flex a Spout from the gutter section (for routing the water from gutter to barrel) $9
Rubber sheet for cutting out gaskets (for sealing both inside and outside of the hose valve, this was the Depot guys suggestion not sure I couldn’t have found a gasket some where else) $5
Amazing Goop sealant (for sealing any hole/valves, this is also a suggestion from Depot guy)$4
5 inch PVC fitting, sorry don’t know what this is called, its narrower on bottom and has threads, we’ll be using it to funnel the water into the barrel from gutter tubing $6
1/2 inch hose big valve (for water to come out of barrel into hose)$6
5 inch hose clamp (to clamp screen over PVC funnel so debris and bugs don’t get into barrel)$2
1o ft of 1 inch flexible plastic tube for overflow, sorry no name on this either, got it in pluming section $8
Items we already had
Barrel, screen, drill, concrete blocks for base
Items we borrowed
7/8 hole saw to cut hole for valve and over flow
jig saw to cut 4 inch hole for inflow of water
Nut to screw onto hose valve inside barrel to hold it in place
Whew! This is a long post, and we haven’t even got to how to build it yet! Well we were so worn out by getting all this stuff we didn’t get to any actual construction. But we will, and when we do I will fill you in on the design details, how we put it together, and if it works!
