Rain Barrels

Rain barrels can be helpful tools when living in a drought prone area. When I lived in California, I had three of them!

Put in the most basic terms, a rain barrel is a container placed under a rain gutter downspout.

Rain barrels are pretty easy to make (and often perform better) than store bought varieties. If you still want rain barrels after learning more about them, check out the amazing DIY designs at instructables.

​Benefits of rain barrels

Rain barrel

If you live in a drought-prone area, you have probably noticed that your water is getting "harder". This is because of the minerals that are being dredged up from the bottom of reservoirs and ground water sources. It's not necessarily a bad thing (unless you are a coffee-maker or an iron), but it doesn't taste as good as it used to. Unlike the water that comes out of our faucets, rain water collected in rain barrels is free of chlorine and other chemicals used to make water potable. Watering container plants and in-ground plants with water from rain barrels means less potable water is being used. If you wash your hair from rain water, you may find that your hair feels softer, too.

Different roofs collect different amounts of water. You might not get any in Arizona. Your average 2700 sq. ft. roof in California’s Bay Area can collect more than 25,000 gallons of water each year. Most rain barrels are significantly smaller than that, so you will only be able to collect so much before that water has to go someplace else, but it still ends up saving on your water bill.

The down side of rain barrels

As good as rain barrels are at conserving water, there are certain things you should know before you go shopping for your very own Amazing Rain Catcher. Here is what I have learned:

1. Sooner or later, your rain barrel will get full. If your rain barrel has an overflow outlet, you can connect a hose and redirect the water. If not, you will have to connect a hose to the spigot at the bottom and risk emptying the rain barrel and collecting nothing.
2. Rain barrels do not have any pressure besides gravity. This means that they tend to work slowly. The work better if they are raised up a little on a platform.
3. Rain barrels must be cleaned periodically. Roof grit, leaf debris, dust, bugs and who knows what else will collect in the bottom. Over time, that sludge can get thick enough to clog the spigot and it can become rather foul smelling.
4. Standing water in rain barrels can attract mosquitos, so be sure to create a barrier and use mosquito dunks and/or mosquitofish.
5. Some rain barrels (like mine) feature really pretty plant holders in the top. Before buying this particular style (or installing plants), ask yourself how you will tip the rain barrel over to clean it out with those plants up there.

Now, I’m not trying to discourage you. As I said, I have three rain barrels and I use them year round. In the peak of summer, if I have managed my 65-gallon rain barrels properly, they give me a total of 195 gallons of rain water to use on my plants that would have had to come from the taps.

Let me know if you have any questions about rain barrels in the comments section.