Rain barrels can be easily built to catch rain water from your gutters or catch natural rain as it falls. This water can be reused to water your lawn, or can be filtered to be used for washing clothes, dishes, taking showers or flushing toilets. You can also hook up special filters for the water to be brought into your home to be used as drinking water as well.
The construction of a double rain barrel will allow you catch more rain water, and once one barrel fills up, any additional water will overflow to the second barrel. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Locate two 55-gallon barrels made from wood or plastic. Keep in mind what was in the barrels beforehand. If there was fertilizer or any other type of dangerous or hazardous material, the barrels should not be used. Make sure they are cleaned thoroughly on the insides.
2. Cut a hole in the top of the barrel approximately 2 feet wide. Place your window screen over the hole, and drill it into place to keep it from moving.
3. Set the two barrels side by side, approximately 1 foot apart. On one barrel, mark a spot for the PVC pipe to connect to the second barrel. Angle the PVC pipe slightly downward to connect to the second barrel (approximately 10 to 15 degrees downward). This will allow the water to flow downward by the force of gravity into the second barrel when the first one starts to overflow.
4. Cut the two marked holes for the first and second barrel. Place the pipe adaptors and couplings in each hole and put the PVC pipe into place.
5. Using your plumbers tape or glue, make sure the PVC pipe stays into place securely in each of the two holes.
6. Drill a small hole at the bottom of each barrel (approximately 10 inches up from the ground) for your spout to be located. Put the spouts into place, securing them both with the plumbers tape or glue.
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