Free Water

Posted under Self-Sufficiency

After looking at the water bill, and then looking at our newly enlarged garden, a thought came to me. Not one of those “aha” or “eureka” moments, but more like an “Oh, duh.”

It’s spring here in the Northwest, which means it is raining most of the time, with water pouring off the house and onto the grass I will soon need to mow. So what if we could somehow capture that water and use to water the garden, I thought. And then realized that we modern internet savvy people are, in fact, idiots in comparison to people who lived only a few generations ago.

I began my search for a barrel on the internet. It’s interesting to consider sometimes how we lived before this rather bizarre invention. I can remember telling people in the mid 90’s of how, one day, they would see internet addresses on the side of UPS trucks. They scoffed. My prescience did me no good, at least financially, but at least I can sip some tea and feel smug for a moment.

I found many professionally made plastic barrels with spigots, all at rather high prices for something I see as being very simple. And when you add shipping, it gets a bit crazy. So, I thought again, what if I make my own? Self-sufficiency… such thoughts are frowned on in this age of experts, professionals, and licenses.

I discovered that bottling companies purchase large quantities of fluids in food-safe 55 gallon (and even larger) containers. They often throw these containers away, or sell them for very low prices. The nearest source was over 2 hours away, however, and I’m rather lazy about driving that far for a big piece of plastic.

A few days later, while wandering the local hardware store looking for some bit for the house, I overheard someone talking about “barrels, like you can use to collect water…” and followed the sounds to discover a dozen or so blue 55 gallon drums out back for sale at $20 a piece. I managed to stuff 2 in the car, and trundled home with a happy grin. Buddha provides.

Next, I drilled two 1 inche holes, one a few inches from the bottom, one a few inches from the top, slightly offset. The top hole is for overflow, the bottom I attached a $2 brass spigot from Home Depot. They offset is so the overflow doesn’t dribble on the faucet. I then just drilled many tiny holes in the steel cover, redirected the downspout to the top of the barrel and voila. The most difficult part was getting the whole thing reasonably level.

After about 36 hours of Northwest drizzle and spritz, I had I a full barrel of nice free water. It won’t be enough to water the garden all summer of course – I’m not raising cactus after all. But anything that lowers the bills without much money or effort is well worth doing.