I'm a self proclaimed geek and I'm always looking for ways to make my life easier. Last year I converted an unused corner of my yard as a rain barrel station. Instead of paying way too much money for commercial rain barrels, I made my own out of two large garbage cans. It cost me about half as much this way. When the first barrel fills, it drains into a second barrel. I think I'll add a third in the near future. I cut the inside of the lids and installed screening to keep the mosquitoes out. They may not be as "pretty" as store bought barrels but they work well:
I soon realized what a p.i.t.a it is filling up watering cans to water our vegetable and flower gardens. Being in the mood for a project, I took a trip to Princess Auto and picked up a 15 watt solar panel with controller and a 12 volt pump (350gph) . I also got a deep cycle marine battery and battery box. I had everything else I needed at home. First I mounted the solar panel on the adjacent fence, angled at about 40 degrees towards the sun. I'm sure I could have placed it in another location at a different angle to maximize exposure but this will work fine:
The pump is mounted under the rain barrel stand. The switch is next to it:
The solar charging controller and battery are in the shed that is located behind the rain barrels:
It works great!
The user guide for the solar panel states I should get a full 30 minutes of non stop pumping for every 7 days of charging. I would expect I'd only water "steady" twice a week for about 15 minutes of constant run time each time. This should be just fine. I'd likely run out of water before running out of power! I could always add another solar panel. My next step is to split the hose into a "Y" so that I can pull from both barrels at the same time.
So, putting a 454 in my Pontiac increased my carbon footprint to about a size 15. The solar rain barrel has brought me down to a size 14.5. I'm good with that.
Todd
-- Edited by 69Laurentian on Sunday 21st of June 2009 01:22:32 PM
I couldn't bring myself to pay $75-$85 for those ugly blue commercially-made rain barrels. I do have three Rubbermaid garbage cans on wheels that look just like yours. I only paid $17.95 each last year at Home Hardware (a good Canadian company ).
That's what we'd love to have out west here but we need the rain really bad to be able to fill them, specially the prairies. Lots of them haven't had enough to fill one of those barrels all spring. Anyhow great thinking and I'll bet there will be a few of us following your idea. Let it rain.
looks great. I have been thinking of similar ideas. I need to water my yard when the water ban is on, so using a lot of stored up rain water would be great. Question, the pump you got how many sprinklers do you think it would run?
You are such a techno geek well at least when the N koreans get lose you will still be able to water your garden!LOL Now you need to make your own fuel so I can build my mad max car and run the roads looking for fuel and water we can be a team like master blaster but your not getting on my shoulders!LOL
I'll take photos of the lids. They aint pretty. Basically cut out the center (you really only need to do this to one barrel if you are only going to have one eaves drain into it) leaving the outer ring. Cut enough screening to cover the whole leaving enough excess so that you can put the lid on (now a ring) which will hold the screen in place.
The excess from the primary barrel travels thru an abs pipe into the secondary barrel. The secondary barrel has a small hole drilled at the top to allow overflow.
Also, I used a flexible connector to join both barrels. That way I can simply unscrew the clamps to separate them for winter storage. If I had the room I'd have several rain barrels or a large cistern and pump it through a reverse osmosis system or distiller and use that for washing clothes, showering, toilets etc. That's what they did 100 years ago. 1" of rain on a 1000sq foot roof produces 625 gallons of rainwater!
At the dealership I work which is 50000 sq feet you can imagine the amount of rain that flows out of the downspouts during a heavy rain. The "downspouts" are large pipes (about 10") and literally thousands of gallons of rainwater flow out into the sewer. What a waste!
Good Job!! its a shame in this country that we flush potable water down the toilet! I would think that newer areas should have a split water system in the house and use potable for drinking only... rain water or untreated supply for clothes, toilets, lawns etc... we are so wasteful... one of my projects was the first for approval to reuse water from dialysis for toilets.... and also uses a solar wall (passive panels not photovoltaics) to heat a 3 bay ambulance garage.... its also surprising that thousands of years after the first batteries were invented that we still dont have that technology more perfected for energy storage....
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