We can. Or we soon will be. Since we found some food grade barrels on Craigslist. A few folks on Twitter had told us they found barrels on Craigslist and it took a little manuevering… but now we have two barrels for roughly $34 bucks. Not bad, concidering one 55 gal. barrel online (shipped) will run you 80-100 bucks. And if you haven’t priced actual ready-to-go rain barrels… you might pay 100-200 smackers.
Here is a quick pick of the two barrels…
Yeah… so, not all that much to say about them at the moment, but expect to see a “How To Make A Rain Barrel Video” or something of that nature. There are a million how-to(s) and walk-thru(s) on making a rain barrel… but not a million with us in it right? Right. You don’t come here for the pretty pictures, you come here for us! haha… no really. Kinda. No. Nevermind.
So stay tuned. Do any of you have rain barrels? And did you make them yourself?
We have four rain barrels that we purchased recently as part of a local school’s fundraising efforts. They get barrels and parts donated, they assemble, and we get rain barrels with spigots & overflow pipes for $40 each, delivered.
So far we’ve only installed one, which replaced a rain barrel left by the former owners of this property. Incredibly, they used a barrel that contained something labeled “Toxic – not for human skin contact.” Yikes!
Our barrels are blue, but we expect to paint one or two that will be located in a more visible area next to our house. The recommended paint was Krylon Fusion (spray paint). Our barrels were also one piece – the lid was attached. We wanted to be able to easily clean out the barrels, plus we like the convenience of being able to dip our watering cans for a quick fill-up, so we cut the tops off the barrels. We plan on making screened lids to keep out debris and critters.
For the most part, we have tin roofs and a barn with a slate roof. No worries about contaminants running off of shingles.
Our water situation is unusual in that we do not have a well and there is no city water or sewage system available this fair out in the country. Instead, we have a large underground masonry cistern that holds approximately 3,000 gallons of water. When the water gets low enough, we call the deliver service to bring us 2,000 gallons of city-treated water to refill the cistern (about once a month). What a relief to be able to use water for the garden that didn’t have to be trucked in!
Calm down. This is easy. Go to your local hardware store and purchase the fittings. Just tell them what ya’ll are doing. Place the barrels under a down spout and save the water. If you need better instructions email me and I will have them to you in the morning. Never mind, I will post my rainwater harvesting system tomorrow
We have a rain barrel! We bought a fancy one because it’s very visible on our house from the road. I LOVE it. My parents just go one, too. I’ll have to do a post on it over the summer when we level it out (it sunk down a bit on one side in all the wetness this summer).
I’d love to make one, but it would have to be pretty, so I love the one we have 🙂
I look forward to the bbq and beer version of the “make a rain barrel” video. Our local cooperative extension service ran a free seminar at which every attendee received a rain barrel. I’ll be installing mine in the next week or two, but plan to make one or two more to go with it.
um… yes, we have a rain barrel. No, we didn’t make it. Yes, we come here to see you all crack yourselves up with your own writing (who else do we know like that?? hhmmm…).
note to commenters: less caffeine… it works… really… settle…
If it ever rained here, I would have a barrel
But what do you do about mosquitoes?
I really like the snazzy blue color – can’t wait for the video … do y’ all have back up dancers?
@Janis – we haven’t really thought about painting them. We might look into that. We have blue ones, and we have some blue tied into our garden… so it might just be some stripes or something.
@deb – I knew you would come through. Saw your post, will be using it as a guide soon enough. Adding beer though.
@Jennah – We weighed out buying a “pretty one” but finally just pulled the trigger on these.
@daniel (food dryer home) – definitely hold out for the drunk bbq version. haha
@Shibaguyz – right to the point.
@Germi – It never rains here either… but that is why we are making one, to catch the rain in those once in a lifetime rains. We got mosquitoes covered… you just wait & see. And no – no backup dancers.
Our barrels arrived last night! Whoo hoo! So excited!
I don’t have downspouts on my house, but I have tubs on the rear corner valleys to collect water during the rain and then I empty those into a trashcan. I just got a couple of rubber trashcans that have locking lids to keep mosquitos out. Then I put spigot fittings on the bottom of the trashcans. They work great! And trashcans are a lot cheaper than $100 rain barrels.
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