I made a rain barrel! I found this 55 gallon food-grade plastic barrel on craigslist and James kindly picked it up. It cost $25, and while you can probably find a lot of these out there for free, I thought this wasn't unreasonable. Plus, it came with the spigot. The guy we bought it from had intended on converting it to a rain barrel but never got around to it. So.... I drilled two 3/4inch holes, one at the base and one at the top. I screwed the spigot into the hole at the bottom, and then popped some vinyl hosing into the hole at the top. This is for overflow water, which is diverted into the bushes a few feet away from the house. (Already this is an improvement upon the old situation, where water from the gutter landed directly at the base of the house. )
I did have to take off almost 2 feet of the existing downspout, but it cut relatively easily with scissors. I could not find one of those accordion style flexible spout attachments, but I did find a $2 alternative.
Here is a slightly fancier version of what I got. Basically it is a tube of flexible plastic, and normally you would unroll the 8-foot tube onto your lawn, kind of like a Slip N Slide. The bottom 5 feet have holes punched in the plastic, so rain water disperses along your lawn. (Why you would need to do this during a rain storm, I am unclear). But it was very useful for this purpose, as I cut off the majority of it and used it to funnel water into the barrel.
Yup, just pouring water onto the concrete. I was so excited to have this complete that I allowed it to fill up before raising it on cinder blocks. This was a bad idea. It is definitely necessary to have it propped up on something, because it is impossible to get the watering can underneath the spout when it is one inch off the ground (unless you are going to use a hose, which is not my plan). And when this bad boy is full, it weights almost 500 pounds! So there was no way we were going to be able to pick it up and move it. Hence, the emptying of 55 gallons out sadly onto the concrete. I told myself it didn't matter, because if it hadn't been filled up the rain water would have gone to the same place anyways, but it did feel really wrong. Also, it took about 45 minutes to drain entirely! I was impressed. For those that are interested, it takes about 3 hours of good rain to fill entirely. Not bad!
I made a rain barrel! I found this 55 gallon food-grade plastic barrel on craigslist and James kindly picked it up. It cost $25, and while you can probably find a lot of these out there for free, I thought this wasn't unreasonable. Plus, it came with the spigot. The guy we bought it from had intended on converting it to a rain barrel but never got around to it. So.... I drilled two 3/4inch holes, one at the base and one at the top. I screwed the spigot into the hole at the bottom, and then popped some vinyl hosing into the hole at the top. This is for overflow water, which is diverted into the bushes a few feet away from the house. (Already this is an improvement upon the old situation, where water from the gutter landed directly at the base of the house. )
I did have to take off almost 2 feet of the existing downspout, but it cut relatively easily with scissors. I could not find one of those accordion style flexible spout attachments, but I did find a $2 alternative. Here is a slightly fancier version of what I got. Basically it is a tube of flexible plastic, and normally you would unroll the 8-foot tube onto your lawn, kind of like a Slip N Slide. The bottom 5 feet have holes punched in the plastic, so rain water disperses along your lawn. (Why you would need to do this during a rain storm, I am unclear). But it was very useful for this purpose, as I cut off the majority of it and used it to funnel water into the barrel.
Yup, just pouring water onto the concrete. I was so excited to have this complete that I allowed it to fill up before raising it on cinder blocks. This was a bad idea. It is definitely necessary to have it propped up on something, because it is impossible to get the watering can underneath the spout when it is one inch off the ground (unless you are going to use a hose, which is not my plan). And when this bad boy is full, it weights almost 500 pounds! So there was no way we were going to be able to pick it up and move it. Hence, the emptying of 55 gallons out sadly onto the concrete. I told myself it didn't matter, because if it hadn't been filled up the rain water would have gone to the same place anyways, but it did feel really wrong. Also, it took about 45 minutes to drain entirely! I was impressed. For those that are interested, it takes about 3 hours of good rain to fill entirely. Not bad!
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