Rain Barrels
chasskm
11 years ago
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azzalea
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Rain barrel & lots of little worms
Comments (5)i have 4 rain barrels, 2 connected together. 2 of them are worm free. the other 2 are full of what looks like tiny earth worms. they are not mosquito larvae. i have mosquito donuts in the barrels, and the worms seem to be eating them. when i open the tight fitting lids they sink to the bottom when the light hits them. i added slug and snail bait to them and they are dying. but now the water smells stagnant. so i drained it. i have pantyhose legs connected to the down spouts to filter out debris. are they harmful? and how do i keep them out? i'm afraid my dog might end up with them in his stomach. HELP. thanks....See MoreNeed barrel to make rain barrels
Comments (8)Just a tip for anyone who is thinking about making his/her own rain barrels. The rain barrels on the website Buford purchased from look really nice; however, we've learned at least one thing the hard way from the experience of making our own and that is not to put the spigot up so high on the barrel. Some of the pictures on the rainbarrelsandmore.com website show the spigots at about the midpoint of the barrel. What happens then is that fully half of the water in the barrel can't get out through the spigot. If you make your own barrel and are putting a water spigot on it, I'd suggest you put the spigot down as low as you can, then put the barrel itself up on top of a sturdy cement block, rock, or board platform that is high enough to allow you to put a bucket or watering can under the spigot. One other thing we've learned is that you really don't get much water pressure from these things, even when they're full of water and lifted up off the ground. In our community garden, we had planned to attach drip hoses to them that would be gravity fed, but they really don't have enough pressure to force the water down through a drip hose. So we water by hand with watering cans. You may wonder when you see the photos, so I'll just say that we're not using these barrels to collect rain, only to distribute water throughout the garden. But there are two things to think about when converting your barrel; 1)how will the water get inside of it and 2)how will you get the water out of it when you need it. From my own personal experience I also recommend cutting a hole in the top that is circular and just about as big in diameter as the barrel. The reason being, it allows you to pretty much climb inside the barrel to clean it out as needed. We've been using our barrels for only one season and I've had to clean algae off the insides quite a few times already. (not just from the inside of the semi-opaque white barrels in the picture but also from the inside of colored ones that the sun doesn't shine through) If you look up how-to directions for rain barrel conversions online, most of them will tell you to cut a smaller, rectangular hole in the top. And (again, my own experience - maybe yours will be better!) in addition to the smaller hole making it harder to keep the inside clean, I also found that opening up the whole top instead of just cutting a small square made it much easier to put in the spigot, and to reach around to put the spigot lower down on the side of the barrel. We're using plastic sheeting tied on top to keep out mosquitos, but if I were collecting rainwater from gutterspouts I think I would use a stiffer aluminum or plastic window screening with a hole cut in that to insert the gutterspout. And in case you're wondering, the plastic sheeting doesn't work that well (eventually cracks up because of sunlight exposure). It was just a cheap and quick fix. I'm hoping to be able to afford to use rolled window screening next year. Here is a link that might be useful: Photos of Homemade water barrels with spigots...See MoreRain barrels/Rain water collection
Comments (2)I live in Columbus and a local farm store sells empty plastic barrels about the same size as the ones in the catalogs for about 10 bucks. The only problem is they are used and Im not sure what was originally in them....See MoreRain barrels before or after the first rain?
Comments (2)Good idea. Yes. It has a bottom spigot. We had planned to have them raised up on cinder blocks and have it all set up that way. It's a great idea to let the rain fill them up, check for leaks, empty them and re-level if needed. Common sense! I just needed someone else to think of it. :) Thanks so much!...See Morestolenidentity
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agosushipup1
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10 years agolast modified: 9 years agoLuAnn_in_PA
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agoazzalea
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agosleevendog (5a NY 6aNYC NL CA)
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agopatskywriter
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agoYorkies2
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agoYorkies2
10 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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