Water Collection Time!!!

         I’ve successfully completed the construction of our rainwater collection station.  It only took about 9 hours, 3 trips to the store, and 150 dollars.  Which isn’t that bad if you consider that we will be able to store up to 140 gallons of water that we can then use to water the garden that will feed us (at least a little bit) this year.  

Here’s how it happened:

First I woke up and thought “Man, I don’t want to do anything today, but I probably should.”  Then I got dressed and went outside to check out the situation at hand.  The first real thing I needed to do was hang the guttering and water chain on the eves of the roof.  Here are a couple of photos of what it looked like before I hung the guttering.

Here is the first section of guttering and on the left is where the rain chain will go.

Here is where I added the second section to the first.

And here is the third and final section with an end cap on the far right.

I then attached a small hook on to the guttering and clipped the chain on to it.  Keturah says that this will guide the water into the first rain barrel.

Here is the chain hanging down from the guttering.

I then ate lunch and called Keturah at work to ask her to sketch me a rough idea of what she was thinking for the stands that the rain barrels would sit on.  They need to be raised up a bit so that gravity can help push the water out to the places water needs to go.  This is the amazing blue print I received via email.

With this in hand I now needed to decide how tall the first stand needed to be.  I figured this out by looking at how far the rain chain hung down, and how many rain barrels I had.  Each barrel had to be a little lower than the previous one for the daisy chain effect to work.  I figured that the first stand needed to be about two and a half feet tall.  So I started making the first frame.

 I added a little rail to help keep the barrels in place, I probably didn’t need to do this but a little safety goes a long way.  Here is the 50 gallon barrel sitting on its stand.

Then I made the second stand the same size as the first, because the barrel was a little smaller so the stand size could remain the same.

I then proceeded to make two more stands, each one about 4 inches smaller than the previous one.   And then there were four.

The next step was to cut out part of the top of the first barrel so that the water could flow into it when it rains.  I did this with our dremel tool and a bit that looks like a drill bit but allows you to cut to the side as well as down (like a router bit).  I drew a line so that I would know where I wanted to cut, and then Keturah made my line better (she said it wasn’t rounded enough...).

After cutting the top I now needed to add the barbed fitting for the hoses that would connect the barrels and the spigots so we could get water out of them when they were full.  The two middle barrels would have two barbed fittings (one on each side) while the two end ones would only have one each (facing towards the middle). 

 I used a paddle bit that was about 11/16^th of an inch wide to drill the initial hole.

I then used the dremel tool with a sanding drum to make the hole a little bit larger and a little cleaner looking.

Then I started to thread the threaded end of the barbed fitting into the hole.  The metal threads easily pushed their way into the plastic, threading the plastic as it went and creating a tight seal at the same time.

Here is a picture of the two barbed ends facing each other ready to be connected with the vinyl hose.

I then used the same hole cutting process to attach the spigots to each barrel.

Here Keturah has attached the vinyl hose to the barbed fittings, creating a nice passage for the water to use when the first barrel fills up.

Here are all four barrels sitting on their stands, connected to each other and ready to be filled with the next storm (which might be this weekend). 

The only thing left to do is get some mesh to cover the open hole on the first barrel so leaves and debris won’t fall into it and clog everything up.  Also, we have to add a doughnut that inhibits mosquito growth to each of the barrels (don’t want to create a breading grown for Keturahs arch nemesis). 

There you have it, our set up for rain water collection. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us or just leave it in the comment section below.  Now time to watch the first X-Files movie and relax before I have to get up and go to work at 5:30 in the morning.

P.S.

Here's a shot of me as I figured out that I forgot something and now have to go back to the store for the third time in a row...

 

P.P.S.

I apologize for the grainy photos, I had to use my ipod to take them because my computer decided to try and catch fire the other day, and I cannot connect the nice camera to Keturah's laptop...  Also, if you see any spelling or grammatical errors please let me know, I have posted this with out letting Keturah read it over first...

Water Shed Moment…

We’ve had these rain barrels for a couple of months now, and haven’t done anything with them except making a composter.  Which reminds me here is a photo of the finished composter.

I narrowed the base a little, and added two more floor flanges to the inside to screw the bars into that are on the inside.  It’s working pretty well so far, I will let you know more when we actually get some compost out of it.  Let’s get back to the main topic of this post.

We’ve decided to set up our rain barrel collection system.  When it’s up and running we should be able to store about 140 gallons of rain water.  We are going to daisy chain four barrels together, three 30 gallons and one 50 gallon.  All of the supplies that we got to set up the collection center cost about 130 dollars (that’s US dollars), it’s not that much when you consider it’s free water.  It’s also going to be great when the city of Norman puts severe water restriction on us because of the lack of rain fall, this means we will still be able to water our garden and grow vegetables during the strictest times.   I will try to take pictures of each step as I take them, and I will post them (hopefully) tomorrow evening.  My first step will be to hang the guttering, and then I will make a stepped stand for our daisy chained rain barrels so that they will drain into each other.  Check back again tomorrow night to see how far I got on this new project (hopefully I will be about finished with it). 

P.S.

I didn't get this up yesterday so just think of all the tomorrows as today's/tonight's (thanks).

#80

 I haven’t been blogging for a while because I haven’t been doing anything worth talking about.  I’ve started to fire the work from the last blog post, but I’ve blown up a few in the kiln.  This doesn’t make me too happy; I have about 5 out of 10 left from these last ones I threw.   I have been working in the garden a little bit.  I planted some herbs, flowers, and a couple Japanese eggplants.  It’s been really wet around here for the last week or so, I’m going to wait till it dries out and then plant our seeds directly in the garden and see what happens.  Today I’m going to get some more clay and make some more work for this new(ish) project I have, and I’m going to have dinner with Keturah at our favorite Pho place up in okc.