How to Build a Rain Barrel

I love my rain barrels. I have 4 barrels setup around the house. After many changes, I settled on this rain barrel design. It is well designed and very useful. There are many questionable designs out there. Learn from my mistakes and build your own rain barrel.

Step 1 Parts and Tools

Here are the parts I use in my rain barrels. I get my barrels from a local barrel recycler. Other good places to find barrels are car washes, soda bottling plants and online classified websites. Make sure they are food grade barrels.

Comments

[Barryaubrey]

How much water psi do you get from your tank, and how would you add a solar pump.

[beecroft]

For gravity systems such as this you get around 0.43 PSI for every foot of head, which is the distance between the top of the water level and the spigot. So if the water is 2 feet deep you'd get a little less than 1 psi. Not much but enough for hand watering!

[tmort]

Where do you get a screen like the one shown? What are they used for or what should I be asking for?

Thanks

[AtlantaRainBarrels]

I have 2 different types of screens listed under the rain barrel parts section of my website: www.AtlantaRainBarrels.com.

I have had a hard time finding them for a good price at retail stores. Sometimes pond supply stores or places like Pike Nursery have baskets if you want to look at a local retail store.

[tmort]

What is the screen you are using called or what is it for and where would I find one?

[RaisedByRobots]

How can you get the rain barrel water back into your house to use for washing and flushing?

[rainbarrelstorage]

I tried building one of these myself. It ended up that it would be about the same price as these: http://www.rainbarrelstorage.com but wouldn't look as nice. So I bought one.

[waltbosz]

Nice instructable. I saw on your web site that you sell painted barrels. Care to share some painting tips? What kind of paint do you use? I painted my barrel with exterior house paint that was supposed to stick to vinyl siding, but it has started to flake off after getting wet. I suspect that the plastics these barrels are made of are significantly different from the siding so that may explain the flaking. Any suggestions?

[mrtank]

Correct, Krylon is the way to go... More than likely your tank or barrel is polyethylene. Not much sticks to the polyethylene , but the Krylon paint has been reported by a few of our customers to work really well. If you don't like painting we can always make you something in almost any color at www.plastic-mart.com , check us out if you get a chance..

[AtlantaRainBarrels]

I have been using the Krylon Fusion spray paint. It is supposed to be specially formulated for plastic. You can find it anywhere that sells spray paint. I make sure I wipe the outside of my barrel well with denatured alcohol (or something similar) first to get all the label residue and everything else off the barrel. It should take 1-2 cans of paint to get good coverage. Let the paint dry well before moving the barrel. The paint will still chip fairly easily if you bump it but it touches-up very well once you get the barrel where you want it to go.

[mrtank]

Buying in bulk over the phone is the way to go if you don't have anything locally. Visit us at http://www.plastic-mart.com for sizes and prices. If you need more than one be sure to order over the phone (toll free 866 310 2556), there is a large discount on freight for more than one. This is the recommended way to order bulkhead fittings. We keep them in stock and can ship them immediately. If we can we'll direct you to a local supplier so you can just go and pick up directly, saving time and cost.

[aptd27]

You also may want to look into a rainwater diverter kit to keep away algae and keep the misquitos out. This website has a few different ones: http://www.raintankdepot.com has them.

[johndengler]

Is this bulkhead fitting a common hardware store item? I wasn't able to find one at my local hardware store.

[green_mom]

I live in the midwest and I found the bulkhead fitting at a farm supply store called Orscheln. I have also seen them at Rural King (another farm supply store). In the bin they were labeled as 'tank fitting'. Orscheln has the better price at about $5, and Rural King was priced at about $7.50. Good luck!

[AtlantaRainBarrels]

I was never able to find them locally and they can get pretty expensive on some websites. I buy them in bulk and sell the extras on my site (www.AtlantaRainBarrels.com) and you can also probably find them for a reasonable price on ebay. Make sure the interior is threaded and not smooth (slip), which is made for glue.

[dsjsws]

Thank you for the information, it saved my house from flooding for the third time this spring, plus it gives me a great way to water the yard this summer. I connected the main spigot to a small hose and connected that to my underground soaker hose system. Just a few notes: I could not find the bulkhead fittings described in the timely manner needed to save me from flooding, so the hardware store suggested a water-tight connector used for outside electrical work. It worked beautifully. I inserted it into the rain barrel and screwed a 3/4-inch spigot onto it. (I did have to adjust the size of my drilled holes to accommodate the different fittings. I used a 1-inch drill bit) I also added a clean out valve to the base of each rain barrel so that cleaning will just mean a flush with a garden hose in the future. My barrels came with lids that have a metal clamp to hold them in place, so I drilled a few small drainage holes in the lid to avoid standing rain water in the lids and added a layer of mosquito proof screen which I just put in place by clamping the lid down. I added the screening to my overflow drains also to make them bug proof. I used three layers of 8x16x4-inch blocks (leveled and staggered) to make my base. Great project. Thanks for the help. I now have 4 working rain barrels.

[jackson42]

the foundation block in the first photo may be for illustration purposes only, but if not, it seems it might be a bit unstable. I use four 8" x 16" x 1" capstones, sometimes also called pavers. they're also available in a 4" thickness. I interlock them into a square pattern to form a stable platform as some full rain barrels can weigh about 400 pounds. or, you could use what is commonly referred to "earthquake strapping" to tie it to the building. it's just a metal band with perforations every few inches to place a nail through for securing. they're common for water heaters as well. and also for your design, I'd think it might be good to make sure the overflow outlet lip is below the bottom of the inlet basket. otherwise, once full, the waterline will be up inside the basket allowing mosquitoes to breed in that water and wiggle through the basket screen openings. looks good. thanks for sharing.

[AtlantaRainBarrels]

Yes. You are correct on both points.
The concrete block in the first photo is just for illustration. I should have made that clear. 50 gallons of water @ 8 gallons each = 400 pounds. I can't emphasize enough how important a secure base is.
Also, the bottom of the overflow outlet is located below the basket. All my measurements assume that identical parts are being used. That is good to point out in case alternate parts are used.
Thanks for looking (and commenting).

[klhudson]

Awesome job. Looks Great!

[sierrabravo]

this is the best instructable that i have seen to date about constructing rain barrels, thanks for posting!

[millenniumtree]

Nice Instructable!! Your ball valve looks a bit small to me. We have 6 barrels around the house. Some have 1/2 inch valves and some have 3/4 inch. The bigger the valve, the better, IMO. A 3/4 inch valve on a full barrel can fill a 2 gallon watering can in less than 10 seconds!! That's more than 12 gallons per minute. The 1/2 inch valve seems like a drinking straw by comparison.

[AtlantaRainBarrels]

I've seen many designs with the 1/2" valve and have never been happy with the results. The ball valve I use on my barrels is the 3/4" full flow valve and it works great. Maybe it just looks small in the pictures. Thanks for looking.

[millenniumtree]

Ahh, good. I was even thinking of putting a 1" in a barrel to see just how fast that would be. (I must be really impatient) We use brass full-port ball valves and they're awesome. They cost about $8 a piece, but they're really solid. I'd like to switch them all to the same size and get a hose adapter so I can water things more quickly, but the watering can forces me to keep better tabs on our usage. We must have used several thousand gallons a year when we used city water and a hose. Now we don't even have a hose bib. (removed it because the line ran straight over our electrical box and pipes tend to sometimes freeze/burst up here in Wisconsin)