BenefitsEnvironmental Benefit: ★★★☆☆
Conserves energy used to purify and supply water to your house, and benefits your plants by using more plant-friendly rainwater to water them.
Money Saved: ★★★☆☆
Save money by purchasing less water. The rainbarrels can usually be gotten for reduced cost either by recycling old containers or through city rainbarrel programs.
Lifestyle Benefit: ★★☆☆☆
Not a huge lifestyle benefit, although hand watering from your rainbarrels gives a certain sense of satisfaction that you're more independent from the utility companies! If you have foundation problems or issues with flooding, then collecting the water can help improve those situations as well.
What We're Doing
We've got three rainbarrels, around 70 gallons each, that we've purchased at a discounted rate with our city of Austin rainbarrel program. I think they've averaged around $50 each. To install, you just set them on a stable foundation (a small bed of gravel will do) next to one of your roof drainpipes. Cut the drain pipe off shorter with a hacksaw and screw the little spout back on the end so that your roof's rainwater is directed out over the top of the barrel. There is a screen on the top of the barrel to keep insects and debris out, but allow the rainwater in. These barrels, being designed as rainwater collection barrels, also have barriers across the opening to prevent small children from climbing inside. There are hose connections at the bottom, which you can use to "cascade" barrels together for more water storage, or else connect to a hose for gravity-fed watering. Shannon sometimes does this (but it's slow, since there isn't a lot of pressure) but more often just fills her watering can from the barrels and uses it for handwatering (included in picture). Some barrels can also be connected together at the top, so when one fills it "spills over" into the next barrel. The two barrels pictured here collect water from only about 1/3 of our roof area, but will completely fill with about half an inch of rainfall! Another benefit is that rainwater doesn't have the minerals and chlorine, etc. that are generally found in tap water - so it is healthier for your plant leaves.
Links
Here are a few helpful links with more information about setting up your own rainwater collection system!
A Little Humor
There was a communist named Rudolph. One day he looked out the window and said, "It looks like a storm is coming." "No it isn't," said his wife. "Besides, how would you know?" "Because," he responded, "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."
One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?" The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. "I can't dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room." A long silence was broken at last by a shaken little voice saying, "The big sissy."
So this guy moves to Oregon from I don’t know where, say Chicago, where the winters are brutal but the sun often shines — and for the first month he’s here, it rains.
And rains. You know the stuff. That solid, unremitting, bone-chilling, soul-sogging Oregon rain that turns the whole word gray and acts as if it’ll never stop. The kind of rain that makes you realize you haven’t seen a shadow in weeks, and this guy is flipping out.
He’s waiting for a bus one day with a clean-cut youngster, both huddling in the shelter as the rain pelts the roof. Finally, he can’t stand it. “Hey kid,” he growls, “is it always like this?”
“Gosh, sir, I don’t know,” the boy answers. “I’m only 17!”
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