Hold your water!

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athabaskar

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Nov 21, 2007
309
12
Irving, Texas
I don't know where else to post this so it is going under Ideas. I've been playing around with rainwater retention for over a year now. I have one rain barrel that I bought, and another that I built. I'm now working on a system that uses four 55 gallon drums piped in series with the 40 gallon unit that was store bought. In the end I'll have upwards of 300 gallons to use on the garden during our dry summers. Most of the parts have come from craigslist free stuff. The barrels are recycled from a car wash detergent wholesaler. I'll keep y'all posted with pics as the build takes place.
 
Sounds like a great idea. Way to conserve resources and still be able to maintain your garden once you go on a drought warning where they won't let you water your garden or lawn.

I've thought about doing something like that but I'm afraid my neighbors would frown about a bunch of blue plastic barrels lined up along the house.
 
I keep rain water too. It's called a retention pond here in fla. But you have a good idea there thou.
 
At my old house I piped my rainwater from a downspout on my house to a rain barrel. Then thru a filter to several low pressure gravity feed drippers. The actual drippers which can be turned off and on individually cost 39cents each. 50 feet of low pressure hose cost $19.95 Smaller 1/4 inch side lines cost $10.00 for 100 feet. I put one dripper at each tomato stalk then you take a garbage bag and cut it in half put a 2" hole in the center for the plant to grow thru. Cover the bag with 2 inches of soil. This keeps the moisture from evaporating. Plus keeps the soil warm in spring.
You can get 1/4 gallon per hour, 1/2 gallon per hour and 1 gallon per hour drip spouts.
Doing this you really do not have to water your tomatos or fruit trees all summer long.

My neighbour re-routed the drain from his kitchen sink out into his garden, the grey water is full of nutrients and his garden is a sight to see.

He re-attaches the sink to the regular lines for the winter. He has three barrels in a row that settle any large sediment to the bottom before they can plug his drippers.
 
In Texas we call them Rainwater Cisterns . My grandpareny both sides had them and storm shelters . We now have none of either . I remember dropping a ladder down the thing and climding getting a cat out it once . The water was so damn cold it hurt . Ours were all under ground .
 
I have a couple of barrels that I collect rain water for my toilet at my cabin since I dont have a well dug.
 
I saw something on the TV about some cisterns. Seems these folks were building them. As you might imagine, they were nice looking (professionally installed and piped). Nice idea for folks living in real dry parts of the country.

I think it would be cool to do all that green stuff (solar panels & water cisterns), but my pocketbook ain't big enough for that sort of project.

Let us know how it goes.
 
Wife and I would love to do this, but having a round house precludes any simplified rain capture method.

icon_rolleyes.gif
 
Our house has a cistern but it has been unhooked from anything that would use it. I want to see if I can gain access and use that water someplace. Only place I see that has access is a downspout off the gutters. My big butt ain't getting far with that. Just another mystery with an old house.
 
Reminds me of my dad's camp in the North Woods, Montague County NY on Tug Hill. He built a 4x4 framework as high as the edge of the roof and mounted an old Coca Cola cooler on top of it; the kind that had the double lifting doors on its top (you could lift up one side or the other)? Of course he removed them and had a big ol' giant rain water collection system and the only camp on Tug Hill with running water!
 
I've had such crap luck uploading photos to SMF. I hope I finally got it right. Apparently I'm photo impaired. Anyway, I pieced this water retention system together over the months using almost entirely recycled (free) materials. We got less than 1/8" of rain last night and it filled 1 1/2 of the 55 gallon drums. You can't see the original 40 gallon drum in the shadows in the pictures. It is at the end of the daisy chain.





Note the inspector giving it her final approval.
 
Here's where the last hose runs to. It is a commercial rain barrel I bought a couple of years ago.



This is another one I built. It takes the water from my neighbor"s illegal patio cover. We get along well now.
 
Was just lookin this am for closedtop barrels I found them for $20.00 each.  I will keep lookin for the right price as you paid.  Love the daisy chain  thanks for sharing

Beav
 
Thanks for the pictures! Is there any specific reason you chained them together at the top as opposed to the bottom?
 
Dang Athabaskar that's a fine system you made there.  Overflow tubes, Daisy chained together and all.. Very nice.

Rick,

I believe it all has to do with water flow.  As for the barrels it's because when one is full it goes to the next one and so on.  If you're talking about the gray tubing, I think its just the most efficient way to fill them all up utilizing as much of the barrel as he could.  Maybe your talking about the gray tubing being at the top rather than at the bottom of the barrels...  I think that has to do with the pressure and weight of the water.

Sean
 
Water weighs 8.75 lb per gallon.Drawing off top don' t get sediment .A sand trap would work better to keep stuff out of water. I live on a old farm it was built back in the 40's now town is closing in.The bath tubs ,sinks and washer go to gray water outside.I have the biggest trees in neighborhood.Some you can't bear hug around .A red tail hawk lives in one.Gray water rules you can leave water on when you brush you teeth and not feel guilty compared to just using hose to water .
 
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