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Installing a (Manufactured) Rain Harvesting Barrel
by
Building Moxie
(IC: blogger)
$130
2 Hours
Medium
I installed half round gutters and corrugated downspouts on my house recently ... (I have an old house and I wanted to maintain this look). As I was doing this, and since I knew I had some nearby yard work planned, I incorporated a rain barrel. After some research (through which I learned there is no shortage of techniques for making rain barrels nor in the shear number of rain barrels now on the market), I chose a 60 gallon rain barrel made by a company called EarthMinded. I picked it because 1) it looked good 2) it was comparatively large 3) it looked easy to install and 4) it could be bought through a local conservancy that subsidized the barrels bringing their cost down. With rain barrels (like real estate) location location location is everything. Screened (at least partially) from the road, I set the barrel just downhill of last year's Vinca planting and just uphill from a bit of grass I intended to overseed (I completed this this past weekend and plan to post on it). I purchased 2 bags of pea gravel, used scrap (ground-contact-rated) 4x4s (further treated) and a spare piece of blue stone. Together, this/these provided a solid, level and elevated base (all very important). Assembling and installing the barrel was a snap (Earthminded's instructions were excellent) BUT I did have to request beforehand a kit that would work with my new round downspouts. I may write more about this project on my blog in the coming weeks but for now if you have questions, don't be afraid to ping me. Thanks for reading. ~jb
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Published May 6th, 2013 1:50 PM
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3 of 21 comments
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S137 on Aug 13, 2013I couldn't afford to buy one of the Earthminded rain barrels, so I searched around and found that Earthminded also makes kit (about $30) that let me transform a 55-gallon barrel into a rain barrel. It was this video that convinced me that I could do it myself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFM-J5OGR7c
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Julia Sipe Bentley on May 26, 2015Great job! It looks professionally done!
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