Rain Barrels

I guess you could say my family has an affinity for things like this. We have an affinity for little pet projects and for building our own functioning tools and resources. This just happened to be convenient for me at the moment so, Rain Barrels it is.

Over the last couple of years, we have been noticing a pesky problem with our house that seems to continually worsen, especially around this time of year. The back and side of our house did not have rain gutters. This made the water from the roof drain onto the North side of our house which seems to be perpetually wet because of its shady disposition. This is in addition to whatever wetness the ground itself received directly. This combined with our rowdy dogs, most especially Zeus who runs in the mud, has created some large muddy patches in our lawn up against the north side of our house. With this in mind I noticed Lowes had a good deal on rain gutters. I mentioned this to Suzanne. Both of us were sick of the mud and the ruts the dripping roof has created in our lawn, so we decided to spring for it.

I obtained all the parts needed and installed the pig myself. It was a little tricky because of the bay window but at last I got it to work and wort it does! Now this bring us to the drainage. I didn't want it draining right by my foundation lest it flood my basement after a heavy downpour in monsoon season this summer. I also didn't want to dig a trench in my already flagging back lawn to lay a drainage pipe with the flex hose and whatnot. Now, my brother and I have toyed with the idea of creating some rain barrels in the past. I didn't wanna fool around with it then because all my downspouts were in the front yard and it could be a little unsightly to have a few 55 gallon drums chillin in ones front yard. So our new gutters created such a welcome opportunity! Especially since I love the amateur gardening Suzanne and I do in the summers and knowing how much water we pour into that, I was all the more motivated. Travis turned me onto some youtube videos which gave me a lot of different ideas, some good and some bad. After much research and a little thought, here is the chronicle of building my rain barrels.

So first of all, even though I know he wont be reading this, big thanks go to my Dad for hooking me up with the two 55 gallon drums and the cinder blocks I used for this project. Everything else I was able to obtain for some serious cheapness at Lowes. So I obtained the basic materials which were the barrels, cinder blocks, sand (which I already had), and all the PVC. I solely used 3/4" schedule 40 PVC just for uniformity and price. All of that maybe cost me a little more than 10 bones. I then disassembled the barrels.

This is an example of what a "bung" is. On the top of the barrels are two outlet holes. One of them has a plug in it to seal it up, and the other has a bung in it to provide easy access to attach a spicket. I will be using it for a slightly different purpose however.


Using the bung, which already has pipe threads, as an access point I purchased some 3/4" pvc adapters. I got one for each barrel. They are easy enough to use, they just screw right into the bung. I bought the o-rings just for good measure. I used some vinyl sealant on the threads of the adapter as an extra layer of protection against leaks and tightened it into the bung as tight as I could. I then used the sealant on the inside of the bung at the base of the adapter to make sure no water would escape.

This is a package of 1" o-rings that fit perfectly over the 3/4" adapter. I think this was less than a dollar at Lowes.





When using the vinyl sealant you always want to allow at least 24 hours for it to cure. I made this mistake on my rain gutters and sealed a couple joints with it right before we got rain and snow and have since had to go back and fix it. So in other words, once I got the adapters in the bungs and all sealed up and let them cure for 24 hours before doing anything with them.


Once my bungs/adapters had fully cured I went ahead and cleaned the threaded ports for both the bungs and the plugs in the barrel. I used a toothbrush to make sure it was clean to create a better seal for the water and a better surface for the vinyl sealant. Once again I put some serious vinyl sealant on the thread and as you can see in the photo, I sealed the top of the plugs and bungs with the sealant.


Here, I went ahead and attached a 2 inch piece of pvc pipe to the adapter using the purple primer and the blue pvc cement. On that I attached the 90 degree elbow, making sure the elbow faces outward so my manifold system can be attached.


I also ran into a snag with the design of these barrels. Because they need to be turned upside down for this operation, and because they weren't originally designed to be upside down, they have a weird mound or bubblish bulge on the top there. This makes it so the barrels do not sit on the cinder blocks in a very stable manner. To remedy this problem I used 7/16" OSB to even out the surface and help the barrels have a little more support from underneath. These barrels will weigh in excess of 400 pounds each when filled so I wanted maximum support and stability.




This is about as far as I have gone. I will record the progress as I finish and will post the completed project and the rest of the instructions when it is all done!