Rain Barrel

[Rex in OTZ]

I have a couple on the ole cabbin I need to do different, seems bird crap makes its way in + the dead bugs and the odd sparrow once in a great while.

[snapcrackpop]

Here's some info that might be helpful:
http://www.faribaultcountyswcd.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=127

How to build:
http://www.faribaultcountyswcd.com/images/Files/Stormwater/rb%20instructionspdf.pdf

[Rex in OTZ]

I found last fall some hardware cloth poprivetd across the top helps keep the birds and big bugs out, a bed sheet streched over the top the can under the cover strains any buggies, the bird droppings is different story, seems birds like roosting on the rain cap, so thinking of makeing a blank off cover for the section of rain trough affected buy the chimmny.
Have 30 gal plastic trash cans  & lids the down spout passes through a hole cut in the lid. small enough one can clean em out if needed.

[Cornbelt]

If you can scrounge around and find a used sieve bend, the trash would slide off and the water would run through. They're used a lot in coal mines. Just a series of stainless triangular bars with a certain space between (some 1/64", some 1/128th") when they get too much gap, they throw 'em out. Seen them iused n a hatchery too.

[snapcrackpop]

Is this drinking water or gardening water?  Makes a big difference, no?
If drinking water then you're going to have to filter it then boil or treat it.
Does water freeze in your cabin?  If not a bio-sand water filter is a great solution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb0xf3mRbJM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOOmaGzx0g&feature=related

[teamnelson]

+1 on the biosand filter. Its pretty easy to set up a bsf off your rainbarrel. On the rainbarrel, mount the outflow about 4" off the bottom so the heavy solids collect on the bottom, then filter the outflow itself.

[Rock Home Isle]

I have a couple on the ole cabbin I need to do different, seems bird crap makes its way in + the dead bugs and the odd sparrow once in a great while.

You guys are so lucky...it is actually illegal here in Colorado to use a rain barrel or install any device or design that captures or detains the flow of run-off water from your property.

I just think that government can be so stupid and invasive...

[Rex in OTZ]

Hadnt had anyone regulate the water fall yet, I strain the water barrel chunks and run the balance through one those forien made 3 element water filters supposed to strain Jardia. If Im in a hurry for Coffie I  by pass the filter and go straight to the stove top them buggies settle to the bottom with the coffiee grounds.

I live in a Arid zone living 33 miles above the arctic circle, we dont have a regulated runoff issue like Colorado, Colorado would be touchy about there resivours not filling with runoff, in the post depression era the govt urged farmers and ranchers to terrace the fields and pastures to retain runoff, we dont have the population here like you do, All the lands are tied up as State, Federal and Native Coorporation, you would have to pass it by some sort of review committie to make diversion terraces here, rooting up the muskeg in the process.

Just this week I came across the refernce 'French Drains'

[Spirithawk]

Dang this thread sure brings back memories. I'm old, errrr seasoned, ok OLD enough to remember many of the folks keeping rain barrels. Back then, before all the pollution, many had a tin dipper hanging on the side. I can still remember how refreshing a drink from that old dipper was on a hot summers day. Thanks for awaking the memories guys.

[bilmac]

Rocky, Are you taking the law too seriously? I know they passed a regulation that any diversion within the whole of the Platte River drainage must have a permit, but most folks I know just ignore it. If you think about it, the farmer who plants on the contour is breaking the law.  Extreme, stupid crap like this is why folks are being taught disrespect for law. So what, you all in Colo have rain barrel cops or what? You could always go with the Al Gore excuse, there was no enforcing agency. Worked for him.

[Oldshooter]

OK  I remember when my Grandmothers house had a open topped cistern and most of the rain that hit the roof made its way into the cistern via gutters and pipe. Is that what made me so ornery or was it the salt pork in the crock in the pantry. Never gave bugs and bird droppings a second thought back then. 

[Rock Home Isle]

Rocky, Are you taking the law too seriously? I know they passed a regulation that any diversion within the whole of the Platte River drainage must have a permit, but most folks I know just ignore it. If you think about it, the farmer who plants on the contour is breaking the law.  Extreme, stupid crap like this is why folks are being taught disrespect for law. So what, you all in Colo have rain barrel cops or what? You could always go with the Al Gore excuse, there was no enforcing agency. Worked for him.

No...its pretty clear. Its in the Colorado Revised Stautes...there was a movement to change it a few years ago. But it buried in the house...

[Rex in OTZ]

Had my Mothers great aunt tell us of when she was just married they had a second hand chevy car and a draft mule, water was pumped by windmill and kept in a small water tower by the house and gravity fed in to the house taps, they dident get a hotwater heater till REA in the late 1940's.
Outhouse was standard

Dad had the same thing a windmill on the hill above the house feeding a buried tilebrick cistern, gravity fed down to the stock tank and the house.
They dident get REA in Knox county Nebr till well into the 1950's, dad showed us the stains on the walls where the lamp black bled through the paint.

My uncle used to water his stock cattle with a spring box and ran the water down hill in black Poly tubeing to fill a stock tank.


The cabin I am working with has two rain troughs and drop tubes feed the rain barrels. I boil what I cook with and run it through a Catadine water filter for sipping water.
Had a propane toilet but was a hassle now am back to the one hole privy.

[blind ear]

All the drains to the barrel from the roof stayed away from the barrel until it rained enough to wash the roof pretty well.

[bilmac]

I saw plans for an automatic diverter like that once. Had a flapper that diverted water away from the bbl until a certan amount had fallen then it flipped over and let the water go into the bbl.  Wouldn't work here in our Wyo desert, we seldom get much rain at one time.

[blind ear]

Would a snow diverter valve work?    eddiegjr

[teamnelson]

I still haven't finished, but when I'm done I'll have the rain barrel running into a homemade biosand filter in series, so what comes out is all drinkable. The gutters are screened; the downspout pours onto the lid of the barrel which has a hole cut in it, and screened - angle the spout so it hits at a slight angle and the pressure is enough to push aside anything that collects on top of the screen over hole.

Sam's Club is selling premade rain barrels in terra cota color, with screened top and a planter built into the lid, run off spout low on the side, and run off spouts high on the side to connect to another barrel for overflow. $99

[Rock Home Isle]

I still haven't finished, but when I'm done I'll have the rain barrel running into a homemade biosand filter in series, so what comes out is all drinkable. The gutters are screened; the downspout pours onto the lid of the barrel which has a hole cut in it, and screened - angle the spout so it hits at a slight angle and the pressure is enough to push aside anything that collects on top of the screen over hole.

Sam's Club is selling premade rain barrels in terra cota color, with screened top and a planter built into the lid, run off spout low on the side, and run off spouts high on the side to connect to another barrel for overflow. $99

In our modern age...you might want to consider an inexpensive carbon filter in series with your water flow.

[Drilling Man]

  I use a plastic trash bag stretched over the drum, with a small hole in the bottom that i stretch over the down spout.  One bag last all summer...

  DM

[Rex in OTZ]

Went out and get er together.