WEEK 9: Rain Barrels

Where Aaron works he goes through a large amount of food grade chemicals, sanitizers and disinfectants that come in large 55 Gallon (200L) drums of various colours. Some of these are considered ‘non-returnable’ and some can be returned for a refund of a deposit. The non-returnable barrels, the chemical company will take back and recycle for free; he figures reusing them as rain barrels will be a better use for them, so we loaded up the truck with 8 of them and brought them home with that in mind.

 

Earlier, November 2012, he installed an eaves trough on both sides of the garden shed, which collect rain from about 256 sq ft. (36864 sq inches) of roof space. That should be enough to collect 385 Gallons (7 full barrels) of water off of just 2 inches of rain.

 

 

Behind the garden shed he is going to build a raised platform out of pressure treated 4 x 4’s with lots of bracing to support the 3200 pounds of water when they are full. The barrels will sit just below the eaves trough. Laying on their sides and hold the water suspended ~5 feet off the ground which should supply adequate water pressure AT ground level to water the gardens. The 7– 55 gallon barrels will be hooked together using the existing fill ports on the top with PVC piping to create a single 385 gallon reservoir.

 

On the upper right there will be an air vent/over flow that drains excess water away from the chicken coop/run area. The bottom right will have a standard garden hose connection/valve.

 After this is up and working, he plans on running a buried PVC pipe out to the middle of the garden plots mounted to a post so we have easy centralized access to water.