Building a rain barrel is easy and you should do it if you garden – especially in Nebraska or any other dry state.
Obtain a 55 gallon plastic drum, preferably not used for noxious chemicals, from the Keep Nebraska Beautiful – Materials Exchange Program at (402) 486-4622 or (402) 486-4562.
3/4 inch brass spigots for garden hoses x2
4″ – 6″ plastic drain grate
1 foot square of window screen
teflon tape
Rinse the barrel thouroghly. Cut a hole in the top of the barrel large enough to place the drain grate. Wrap the bottom/sides of the drain grate with the window screen and place into the hole. With a 1″ spade bit, drill one hole in the side of the barrel near the top for the overflow valve. Rotate the barrel 90 degrees and drill another hole near the bottom for the drain spigot. Wrap the threads with teflon tape and screw in the spigots (leave the overflow OPEN and the drain CLOSED). Paint with Krylon Fusion spray paint for plastics.
Set barrel upon cinder blocks or some such to use gravity to feed your hose when you water your garden.
You will have to adjust your downspout but that isn’t difficult either, though you may have to use some tin snips (and gloves!) to cut it to the right length.
It takes all of about 20 or 30 minutes. You can do this!
UPDATE: Last night the barrel was empty. It rained but officially, the amount was not measureable because it was so little. Yet, the barrel was 1/3 full which is about 18 gallons of water. Woo Hoo!
2 responses so far ↓
beerorkid // May 8, 2009 at 10:26 am |
Awesome. I got the drain grate last week and was wondering how I was going to do the spigot on the bottom. Thanks for the tip.
BEERORKID » Lone Prairie got the lowdown on the rain barrel // May 8, 2009 at 11:13 am |
[...] I was wondering about the spigot on the bottom there. Building a rain barrel is easy and you should do it if you garden – especially in Nebraska or any other dry state. [...]