Building a Rain Barrel - Easy as 1, 2, 3

hi there I'm Gord from element eco design here in Vernon British Columbia and today we're going to be discussing how to make a rain barrel so why are we harvesting water in the first place I've got three reasons number one it's a free resource did you know that a thousand foot square foot roof can actually capture 20,000 gallons a year that's 75 thousand litres to your plants love it it's full of micronutrients that your plants will respond to number three collecting your rainwater diverts that water from the storm drains which is better for the environment because it reduces pollutions in rivers lakes and streams alright now that we're informed let's get started on building our rain barrel first thing we have to do is go get some materials so let's get on our way once you've sourced your rain barrels the next thing you need to do is track down all of your equipment to build a rain barrel we've included a real handy PDF on the Regional District of North Okanagan website that you can reverse you for all your parts list okay so we've made it back from the hardware stores and we've got all our materials don't be surprised if you will don't find everything at one place I usually find about 90% of what I'm looking at at a good hardware store other than that I have to check out Plumbing Supply stores garden centers or specialty pool shops for things like the bulkhead fittings and some of the deposits well now let's go is to take a look at what we bought we'll have a list of all of our equipment and the tools we'll need and we'll get started with the rain barrel so the first thing we have to do is locate a 55 gallon rain barrel and there's many ways you can do this the best one is probably looking on local online classifieds and you should be able to find these barrels between twenty and thirty dollars the cost difference is going to be for a solo top or a removable lid I prefer the removable lid because it is easier to clean but the choice is completely up to you today we're going to go through how to build a rain barrel for a solid top so let's get started so we need a tape measure a tool for marking a flat head screwdriver a file or a rasp we need our hole saws inch-and-a-half hole saw three inch hole saw five and a quarter inch hole saw and of course a drill to drill the holes if you don't have a larger hole saw you can also use a jig saw to cut the larger holes in addition to these tools we need our equipment so we have our six inch flowerpots our bulkhead fitting the inch and a half bulkhead fitting and the 3/4 inch bulkhead fitting we've got our 3/4 inch ball valve faucet and teflon tape we've got our mosquito screen our downspout attachment and our overflow hose with accompanying valve and fittings so now that we've got our rain barrel we need to clean it out and we need to always look at where we're sourcing our rain barrels from so you want to ask the question of what was the rain barrel used for and they just need a quick rinse out and a cleaning so there's certain or environmentally friendly products that you can use such as castile soap or you can make your own mixture of a biodegradable dish soap mixed with equal parts of vinegar and water and it works excellent for cleaning these barrels out now we're going to drill our first hole this is where we're going to insert our 3/4 inch bulkhead fitting and faucet and we start by measuring a spot four inches from the bottom of the barrel and marking that with your felt pen now that we've got our hole marked we're going to tip the barrel on its side so it's in a more stable position and we're going to drill our first hole now we've got our first hole drilled will switch bits and move up to our three inch hole saw and we'll cut our overflow in now we're just going to mark out our overflow now we're going to measure four and a half inches down to mark the center of our bulkhead fitting for our next hole so once again we're going to flip the barrel over so it's in a safe position to work on it's important to remember drill safety when you're drilling these holes these bits can have a lot of kickback and a lot of torque so you really want to brace yourselves before drilling especially the larger holes if you have any birds left over after drilling your holes you can always use a wood rasp or a similar rasp to file off the birds and make it a nice clean opening so now we're going to drill our third hole we're just going to change hole saw bits here and now we're going up to a much bigger hole saw and it's really too important to remember that these can have a lot of kickback and you really want to make sure that you're stable in the position and you really want to hold on this is also a reason that people often use a jig saw for this part of the drain barrel the benefit of the hole saw is that you will get a much cleaner hole but the jig saw is a lot easier and people are a lot more comfortable with it so if you are using the hole saw just remember to be careful and take your time so now we've got our faucet hole and we've also got our overflow hole now the third hole we're going to drill is where our downspout enters the rain barrel and gives us our water that we're wanting to harvest we're going to drill that right here at the back of the rain barrel so it's nice and tight up against the house and there's very little room for adjustment so before we drill this hole we want to make sure we are ready for it and I use a technique called feathering it in I allow the pilot screw to be dug in and then I progressively increase the speed of the drill and allow the hole saw to start digging in and we do this so that because the hole saw can grip sometimes and it can torque your wrist and we want to be safe now we're going to install our 3/4 inch bulkhead fitting for our faucet in the bottom hole to do this we need two common items that most Canadians have a hockey stick and duct tape so we need something sticky to bring the bottom end of the bulkhead fitting down to that hole because some barrels don't come with removable lids so what we're going to do is reverse tape the duct tape so it's sticky side out put the end of the bulkhead fitting attach to it and then just slide it into the hole at the bottom and then we'll be able to thread that fitting into place so the bulkhead fitting is an adapter that comes in two pieces and each side has a fitting to keep the water in and prevent leaks and this is reverse threaded so you're going to be going the opposite direction that you'd be used to to take it apart and it's going to be the threaded side that we're going to stick to the back of the hockey stick and then thread through the bottom and then we will attach this part from the outside so we just want to go ahead and stick that to the duct tape next we take our hockey stick and put the bulkhead fitting into our top hole now we can just slowly remove the hockey stick and the bulkhead fitting should stay in place then we can reach down and screw the nut into the rest of the bulkhead fitting remember the bulkhead fitting comes with two washers one for the inside one for the outside now just get the fitting the nut close to the fitting grab on to it push a finger through put the washer on and then thread on the nut and remember it's reverse thread so it's going to be going the opposite way that most threads usually do and then just tight tighten until it's good and snug so now we're going to install our three quarter inch ball valve faucet and first we've got to put some teflon tape around it around the threads here and then thread it into the bulkhead fitting and you might want to wear gloves for this part because some of these threads can be extremely sharp and it's very easy to get cut and remember safety first now we're going to wrap the Teflon around our faucet and we do this to prevent leaks and give ensure good contact between the faucet in the bulkhead and you want to do this the right way so that you don't strip the Teflon off as you're screwing the valve into the bulkhead fitting so what I do I hold the faucet in my right hand put the teflon tape on and wrap around this way so now we're just going to screw the three-quarter inch ball valve into the bulkhead fitting so now we're going to install our second inch and a half bulkhead fitting in through the overflow and the reason why we're using an inch and a half overflow is because we found with the rains in the Okanagan if we get an acute rain event which we often do it will overflow faster than a common garden hose can keep up so we need the added diameter to ensure that we get even distribution of our over overflow and ensure each side has a washer then we just take the threaded end through the overflow through the inlet hole and put it through the overflow and tighten up the bulkhead fitting now we're going to apply an inch and a half adapter that goes from our bulkhead fitting into our overflow hose i've applied the teflon tape again and then we simply screw that in to the bulkhead fitting until it's tight then we can take our hose clamp add our overflow hose and we can attach these once the barrel is in its final position so now we're going to assemble our filtration system for where our inlet comes in and feeds the water through and this is made from simple products you can find around the home or at any garden supply center it is simply two 6-inch flowerpots and a piece of mosquito screen at least ten inches by ten inches so now we're just going to take our mosquito screen and we're going to apply it to the bottom of the first flower pot and then simply insert that into the second flower pot and the reason I love this screen so much is because it's easy to clean and it's easy to apply and then once that is set we just put it inside our hole and we're ready for connection so now we need to select our site we want to use a site that's got an existing downspout in place and then we want to prepare the site so we've got a nice level base to work off of and in this case we're going to elevate the rainbarrow slightly on some cinder blocks so we've got a little bit more gravity pressure and it's easier for us to connect to hoes so let's start prepping the site when selecting a site you want to make sure that you've got a nice level base so what we want to do is use a level and a rake to prepare the site we want to start by removing any organic material and then backfilling if necessary with either self compacting material such as gravel or sand and then double check levels so we have a nice even surface to set our cinder blocks on now we'll just put our cinder blocks into place so now that we've got the site prepared we put our cinder blocks in place we double-check level and then we can bring the rain barrel over and put it into position now we're just going to bring our rain barrel over to our cinder blocks and set it in place so the faucets facing out and the overflow is sitting at ninety two that how we can address our downspout now we're going to put the downspout adapter into position slightly above where it needs to be and make a line where we need to cut it so now we need to get the water from our downspout into our inlet and to do that we're going to install our flexible adapter what this does is it attaches to your downspout and then you can extend it and direct it into your Inlet bill several tools you can use to cut the downspout I'm going to be using a reciprocating saw with metal cutting blade you can also use a hacksaw or anything else to cut the metal that you have available on site so now we're going to go ahead and cut where we made our lines so now we're just going to put the flexible adapter over the downspout and put it into place make sure it's on bend it into position ensuring that you've got a down slope and then we're just going to use a couple half-inch screws to hold this downspout and flexible adapter in place now that we have water ready to come into our rain barrel we have to divert the excess water away and to do that we're going to install our overflow hose so we're going to take the excess water and divert it away from the house another thing you could do is connect this overflow to another rain barrel so you can have a series of rain barrels and that equals more storage so now we're just testing our system to make sure we've got no leaks in our rain barrel to make sure our gutter is working correctly what we're seeing is that we're also catching some material in here we have an asphalt roof and that's why we're using a screen the screen also has the added benefit of keeping the mosquito population under control so you're not leaving stagnant water around for mosquito breeding now we put on our hose clamp insert the hose and then we just tighten the hose clamp over top of the hose until it's snug and our overflow is ready to go now we're just going to run our overflow down into this mulch basin of this fruit tree that way we're putting our water to its most productive use now you can always cover this up or bury it to keep it away as a tripping hazard or you can run it alongside your house along a garden bed putting perforated holes in it and metal help water your garden bed possibly whenever there's a rain storm so now that we've created our rain barrel assembled it and attached it to our downspout we're ready to start collecting and using our water there's many different options for distribution including drip irrigation through gravity feed direct hose link or filling up your watering can so we can start using this water and the benefit of using rain water is it's got more nutrients your plants are going to love it it's going to be easier on your pocketbook and you're using a free resource that's all from the sky anyways I hope you've enjoyed this video today I'd like to thank the Okanagan Basin Water Board for sponsoring this project I'd also like to thank the Regional District of North Okanagan if you'd like detailed instructions as well as a material list please download this PDF at wwr DOCA /water thanks for watching have a great day you

Channel: Okanagan WaterWise

Views: 844,111

Keywords: rain, barrel, okanagan, valley, water, conservation, source, protection, green, garden

Id: K2qoLtvTYN0

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2012