Redirect water from a raingutter to a rain barrel

I have a shed on a remote country garden that has no pumped water on it.  The garden is fairly large and we need water for the plants during dry periods.  We decided to put rain gutters on the shed and a series of three rain barrels behind the shed to collect the water.  You can see the technique I presented in the instructable Tandem Rain Barrels
to see how I used PVC pipe to connect one barrel to the next in tandem.  At the end of that tutorial I mentioned that I applied the lessons learned on the two barrel system I had at home to the three barrel system at the garden shed.

We put up a 12 foot gutter along the roof line at the back at the back of the shed and used a traditional downspout  to send water directly down into the first barrel.  We were lamenting the fact that we were only collecting half the water that was possible but were concerned about how we would get the water from a front gutter back to the same set of barrels.  We definitely did not want to have barrels out front where they could be easily seen.  After thinking about it for a while, we decided to use PVC pipe to solve the problem.

BTW, this very same shed is the target of another instructable where I showed how to install solar panels from Harbor Freight on it.  You can see this at: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-mount-a-solar-panel/

Step 1 Materials needed

Here are the materials that I used:

All pipes and connectors are half inch here. 

A gutter that ends in a flat end piece

A PVC connector that is threaded male on one end and non-threaded female on the other end

A PVC connector that is female threaded on both ends

A half-inch right-angle PVC connection that is threaded male on one end and non-threaded female on the other

Sufficient length of PVC pipe to reach on a slant to where the barrels are.  If need to join two pipes together, you will need straight PVC connector that is female non-threaded on both ends

Two right angle PVC connectors that are female non-threaded on both ends

A piece of PVC to direct the water down to the opening of the barrel

Note: depending on the physical location of the front gutter and of the first barrel, you will need to get creative and make modifications in the parts needed.

Comments

[garden goddess]

Just a quick FYI, the URL to our popular rain barrel site, posted earlier in the thread, has changed...

http://tylertork.com/diyrainbarrels/construction.html

Rain Barrels - Build your own instructions, Safety, Calculator, and more!

Happy Watering!

[vincent7520]

A rain barrel is easy to instal and there is not much to say about it… but seeing a beautiful cottage like yours is something to remember !…

congratulations !…

[rhackenb]

Thanks, I guess. But it isn't a cottage. It's just a shed.

[xrobevansx]

I have heard you shouldn't use water from asphalt shingle-roofs for vegetables or plants you plan to eat.

You?

[rhackenb]

I've never heard that. I think asphalt shingles are pretty inert and get cleaned regularly by rain. It seems like all green gardeners use rain water like this for their vegetable gardens and who has a roof that isn't made of asphalt shingles?

[xrobevansx]

I did a "build your own rain barrel" class through Rutgers extension office. They instructors were pretty emphatic about NOT using the water you collect from a regular (asphalt shingle) roof for plants you intend to eat. Shrubbery was fine, ornamentals, etc...of course this was all stated after I paid the 20 bucks for the barrel. Upon further Googling I see it is a common belief. Here is one site: (http://home.comcast.net/~leavesdance/rainbarrels/safety.html)

I found your instructable when I was looking for solar panels and rain barrels (coincidentally for my own shed.) I may make a corrugated fiberglass on a frame/overlay to go around my harbor freight solar panels if enough light can go through to be used by the panels. This way, if the fear of the asphalt shingles is sound, I can collect the rainwater from the fiberglass sheets into my barrel while still using the panels!

I also have a composter on the side of my shed along with a watering system for my bees (I have 2 hives going) I call it: ECOSHED!

[rhackenb]

I read the various discussions on the dangers of using runoff from asphalt shingles. I can see where contaminants in the air that settle on the roof is a possible danger but it's a needless worry because those very same contaminants are falling naturally on the garden. If you have a metal roof or metal flashing, that could be a source of heavy metals into the garden. However, the warnings about the components in the asphalt shingles causing a hydrocarbon danger are vague without any specifics. You would think that after the first few seasons of rain, this danger would diminish. Also, it isn't as if the rain is pooling on the roof and sitting there. In a steady rainfall, the water is only on the asphalt shingles for a few seconds before it runs off into the gutter and then into the barrel.

If there really is a danger, we might as well bag the whole idea of rain barrels for gardens since the vast majority of the roofs in the US are covered with asphalt shingles. That's not true in a lot of other countries where they use tile.