I’ve had many questions about my rain barrels since sharing this picture of the completed project on social media. Here’s a look at the details of the project.

Given our steel roof, no basement, and a foundation drainage system, we never bothered with gutters. We added a rain gutter along the front edge to keep the porch drier after screening in the porch. Since we’re on a well, the addition of water harvested from the roof would be a boon when watering the critters, flowers, and veggies.

Through our local Facebook swap and sell, I found two 55-gallon food-grade plastic drums for $18 each. I didn’t relish the idea of staring at the bright blue plastic, so I sanded and then painted them Moss Green with Krylon spray paint. I watched at least a dozen YouTube videos on rain barrel construction and pulled the methods I thought would work best for me. It took two trips to Home Depot and $50.77 to score all of the pieces and parts to plumb the barrels.

These barrels have sealed tops. To let the water enter, I cut a rectangle in the first barrel that the flexible downspout extension fits into. To keep debris from the gutters running into the barrel, I wrapped a one-gallon paint strainer around the end of the downspout. I’m not sure if I’ll stay with this method, but it’s working for the time being.

Black vinyl water tubing runs between barrels at the top. The connection lets the overflow from barrel 1 flow into barrel 2. Barrel 2 has an overflow that connects to a hose that runs off into the woods.

Each barrel is outfitted with a hose bib at the base to connect a garden hose. A ball valve sits between the two barrels. When it’s closed, I use water from just one barrel. When it’s open, I use the pressure of the water from both barrels. Paul said this was a good thing to do, so I added it. Hannah spent last weekend helping me drill the barrels and insert the fittings. The other day, Paul connected the barrels and hooked them into the gutter system.

Our porch is 33′ long. I’m not sure the total square footage of the house and porch roof that feeds into the gutter, but it’s a lot.

I was so excited when it rained today! It’s been weeks since we’ve had a good rain (the pond is down about 8-10 inches), and the rain barrels got an excellent hydro test. After an hour of heavy rain, I arrived home to see that the water was cascading out of the first barrel. My first thought was that the filter was clogged. The netting had done its job and caught some debris, but both barrels were FULL, and the water was flowing in faster than the overflow hose could handle. Over 100 gallons of water ready to use!