Hi Moni,

I am new to the forums, well been reading for a while but haven't contributed until this week.

Where did you get your rainbarrels? What kind of capacity do you have, etc? I have been researching them for quite a while but haven't been able to find exactly what I wanted. I have been looking for some that are larger than the usual 50 gallon capacity.
Are they performing well, I guess they are probably full with all the rain.
Any info. you have would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

hey Moni!! sounds like you're really busy. My cannas you gave me have pushed up through the dirt now, looking forward to seeing more of them. On Sunday, we planted 44 tomato plants, 6 peppers, 2 squash and 4 basil. Monday night after work, I was acting like a crazy woman, trying to locate enough 5 gal buckets to cover them up with, as it looked like we were going to get very bad weather & hail. Got most of the covered, but only had light showers. Better safe than sorry. I am hoping to catch some of the rain in the 5 gal buckets I have. How does the rain barrel system work? (PS: my moneywart is growing well also, nothing going with the daisys or dutch iris's yet.)

I got my rainbarrels at ACE. So far, I have them sitting below the deck, where the water from two downspouts comes out.

Eventually they are supposed to be sitting under a downspout at my yard building. Got to get those rain gutters up... oh, the slowness of some husbands. LOL

Meanwhile, I have to huge garbage cans I store the water in. I pump it up from below, then I pump it over to the next barrel. I hope, to come up with some more barrels, not necessary rainbarrels.

Mine are Fiskars 48 Gallon

Ideally I will have them connected with hoses, for when they get full, to fill the next one.

My sister in Germany has a sweet set up, and I am trying to copy it.

jjgrands1 one of my iris' is blooming, and it is the one I transplanted same time you got yours. My shasta daisies are not doing anything yet, but it is early. :)

Glad yours are doing great.

Moni

I have been saving water in cattle tanks- small black 100 gallon ones that I get at MFA for 60 or 70 dollars depending on the brand. I put them under the drip line of my barn and put a big branch in them in case an animal falls in. I put mosquito dunk pieces in them. I am the queen of siphoning. I have found a few used metal ones at a junk store for $25 but that was a good buy. 50 gallons does not go far here in summer.

Rain barrels are such a good idea. I wish I had them. Of course, I'd need to get gutters first :) It amazes me how much water pours off a roof.

I think I got between 1.5 and 2 inches this morning. That should make a good contribution in a rain barrel!

Did you see the Victory Garden this weekend? I happened to catch the segment where they were showing a garden where rain catchment was put in. It looked like a lot of work, but I bet it was worth it.

Lisa

I bought a 210-gallon sprayer tank like ranchers carry around in the bed of their pick-up for spraying weed killer, etc., from Atwood's. It was normally about $175 but I waited till they put it on sale. Still, it was pricey. But I'm not really good at making stuff and DH didn't seem enthusiastic about it, either.

At the time, I was tempted to get an even bigger tank that is shaped like a barrel on it's side. DH said the 210-gallon mushroom-shaped tank would be plenty big. That's how much HE knows! The durn thing overflows nearly every time it rains, and that's when it has been empty before the rain! And 210 gallons is only enough to water my garden and ornamentals about three times. I'm thinking ahead to August when it may go several weeks without appreciable rain, so it will not help much then. But already I've been glad for what has been in there. We had a dry spell early this spring when my bushes were trying to come out of dormancy, then again right after I set my cabbage out and again right after I had planted some seed, so it was nice to have. Our city water is so expensive because the more water we use, the more they charge us for sewer, also.

The tank has a connection near the bottom with a spigot on the bottom, but it is real cheaply made and the handle on the spigot broke right away. There's a round hole at the top of the tank that has a screw-on lid. The lid seems to keep mosquitos from breeding there. I noticed some algae in the tank early this spring, but that was when we were leaving the lid off. If the tank is not full and we are expecting rain, we take the lid off and drop the downspout into the hole.

I tried siphoning the water from the connection at the bottom of the tank but it just didn't work for me. So we lower a small submergible pump that's connected to the garden hose into the tank through the top hole and run it till I've watered all I need to.

We had an old cellar in our back yard when we moved here. It was one of those metal ones with really steep steps and it had been full of water for so long that the steps were rusted away. Our boys were in the fifth grade at the time and I was really afraid of what might lurk under the lid combined with the boys' natural curiosity. Plus I worried it would collapse or one of the boys would fall in.... So we filled it in. I wasn't doing much gardening then. I've wished several times we had chosen another way to make it safer rather than filling it in. It would've made a wonderful reservoir.

Where did you get your pump and what size. Sometimes I want to water up hill.

Ok, I could make a comment about the darned monsoon that's going on outside now but I'll refrain.

:)

I just got a pond pump for me. Make sure you get a powerful enough one to pump the distance and height. I might have been better off, getting a bigger one.

Moni

PS, mine came from Lowes, around 60 bucks

Yeah, I got mine at Lowe's, too.

Does anyone have any ideas for having rain barrels with kittens and kids around??? I get real nervous about having an open thing of water around, but the savings on our water bill would be GREAT!

Oh, btw... I've got four new baby kittens outside... LOL! I'm gonna train them to guard my veggies. ;)

Beth

I have no small children around here, but I always put something in my tanks for an animal to climb on. I have found dead animals in my tanks and tubs before usually squirrels. I don't even like to find a drowned skink. It is amazing what kids can get into so maybe you should stick with the ones with small openings.

That was actually my reason for getting a tru rain barrel. They are covered.

But expensive. I want to get some more barrels, and will have to get creative about covering them.

Moni

I guess that's one advantage to the sprayer tanks that Lowe's has. The hole at the top is only about 8" across -- too small for a child to fall into. But it might be possible that a cat or a squirrel could, if the downspout was out and the lid was left off. I had never thought of that. When the tank is full I take the downspout out and put the lid on, but sometimes if it's really full I leave it off and I have noticed the neighborhood cats climbing on top of the "mushroom" to get a drink out of the hole. I will make sure I don't get careless about the lid in the future. Thanks for alerting me.

ilene, did you make a pad of sand or something to set this tank on. It would be very heavy with that much water; is it sturdy enough to hold up if you just put it on the not real level ground?

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I found a YouTube video on how to make a Rain Barrel

Here is a link that might be useful: Making a Rain Barrell

...and here's a thread on making them from Garden Web.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: Rain Barrel Parts, Instructions...

I can see a small opening is the best, thanks for those links Lisa! Now I just need gutters... lol...

Yeah, I had a kitten get into a blow up swimming pool last summer and she couldn't get out. Rather traumatic for everyone. I can see there is a safe way to do it now, just gonna cost us some cash!

Beth

Helen, it's up next to my house (so it's handy for the downspout) and there's a sidewalk there. Yes, if there was no sidewalk, I believe it would be best to pour a concrete pad, or something like that.

look at these pictures posted over at the KT forum. Nice set up.

Here is a link that might be useful: rain barrels

Good day everyone. I've been reading every post on rain water storage I can find for quite a while, water conservation around the home (Rain and grey.) is a subject that has always interested me, (I'm also the frugal type.LOL) And although I applaud your efforts to conseve water, I urge you to be cautious when you build your base to sit your containers on. I dont think most people realize just how much water weighs, I believe its 8.345 lbs per gallon, and you can create some dangerous situations if you are not carful.

"Remember the weight of water."

I'll give an example,and "believe me" I'm not trying to be critical of anyone, I just dont want to see anyone or their loved ones get hurt doing the things we enjoy, life is to short.

Oklamoni gave a link to rosemaryt,(Forgive me rosemaryt for using your tanks as an example, absolutley no disrespect intended, but they look so good I figure everone here has seen the pictures.) she has put up 3, 60 gal, barrels for a total of 180 gallons, or 1.502 Lbs, or 3/4's of a ton. and they are raised to a height of 36" and this "is" a good looking job rosemaryt one to be proud of, but because it is narrow and high, and the barrels when filled with water on top of that, it is very top heavy.
I have to ask is the top of the base well secured to the house or something els? and do the blocks the legs are sitting on have a good solid foundation (especially the outside ones.) so they will not start to sink under the weight? (and sometimes they will start to sink so gradually that we dont notice it.)
If the outside ones started to sink a little the top heavy load would eventually start to topple over, and can you imagine what would happen when a 3/4 ton load hits the ground? Just pray no one is there.

Now you have to remember, rosemaryt may have this secured in ways I can't see in the pictures.
I'm just asking all of you to go back and reavaluate the base structure, and if you are satisfied with it, great.
Remember, I'm not trying to be critical of anyone in particular here, Its just that I've seen many different types of installions on these forums that could use some rethinking, and like I said you can't see everything in the pictures.
What has really got me to thinking about safety a lot is the fact that I have two great grandchildern, 3 and 5, that visit often and we do so enjoy them, and I think we have to be extre carful for the small ones.

Anyway, back to the water, I have a 1000 gal, tank that I use, sitting between the garden and the house, fed from the roof of part of the house and my work shed. I put it in 4 years ago.
Now most of us can't afford a large concrect base for a tank, at $110 a yard with a 3 yard min, for delivery plus the cost of labor unless you do the work yourself, so it wasn't worth it.
Besides if you didn't make it petty thick and use reinforcing rod,(Thereby incressing the cost)and there was a soft spot in the ground the pad would crack under the weight, so that was completley out of the question for me.
So what I did was compact the gound as best I could and put down some used heavy corrogated metal that was given to me, and then I put railroad ties on top of that, the metal helped in support but mostly to keep the ties of the ground, therefor less chanch of wood rot. the corrogated part sinks partway into the ground and the ties are a broad support base and they have some give in them so they wont break. "so" this is the cheapest and best I could come up with, So what do you think? Give it to me straight Doc, I can take it. LOL
Last fall after 3 years I had to redo the base as it had sunk about 2" on one side but this was no problem as I drain the tank every winter,I just slid it of the base and redone it.
I have a large hose, and a garden hose connection, also a overflow to keep the excess water away from the foundation.

I'm really not a fan of barrels anyway, and its a lot of work and expence tying them all together, and the cost of the bigger round or metal reinforced plastic tanks are cheaper per gallon then the barrels when you can find them surplus.
I'm on the lookout for some of thoes metal reinforced plastic tanks now, I'm going to install to of the 330 gallon ones on the outher side of the house.
If I can find them surpluse (They sold 2 years ago for $125.00.) hope I can find them and their still that cheap. Stay safe.

I also wish they would put a spell check on these forums.LOL