This week I am using some vacation time away from work. I have a lot of time that needs to be used so I figured around Christmas week, this was the time to do it!
Therefore, I used the time today to go pickup two more rain barrels to fully complete the 220 gallon rain catchment system.
Here are some pictures of the system. Below shows the full system – the four barrels at the top will hold approximately 220 gallons of rain water. The barrel below is one of the composters (still need one more barrel to complete that).
The below photo shows the side view of the system – with the gutters, the overflow, and the 1/2" PVC pipe that comes off from under the barrel. So far I have attached two ball knobs down that 1/2" PVC pipe – the first one by the 4×4 post will allow me to turn the water on to fill a bucket or attach a hose (I attached a 1/2" to 3/4" male adapter to the end to allow a hose connection). The next ball knob at the bottom of the picture and close to the ground will connect to the irrigation system that will be on that side of the garage. Later on, I will add another ball knob where I have a "T" connector by the corner of the garage – this line will go to the garden beside the house and the one in the front yard. By using individual ball knobs, I can open/close the water flow to each garden around the house.
In the next photo – this is underneath the barrels where you can see the 2" PVC pipe connecting all of the barrels together. All of the fittings have been glued together using PVC cement. Between each barrel, there is a 2" PVC Union coupler that allows me to unscrew the piping. This was done so that I can take down the barrels for maintenance or cleaning in the future. Without these, I would have to cut the main PVC pipe between each barrel to free them – and then couple them back up. Eventually this would use all of the PVC pipe and I wouldn't have any more space to make couples!
And lastly, this is the top of one of the barrels. There was a 3/4" hole that was cut out and some screening put over the hole. Then I used some caulk to adhere the screening to the barrel. This is to release the air pressure in each barrel when the water fills them up. The screening keeps any bugs out so they cannot get into the barrels.
Here is the Part 2 of the water cachment system video: