New rain barrels:)

[Piwoslaw]

Not waiting for our gutter work to happen, I hooked up another barrel to those two yesterday. It started raining in the evening and hasn't stopped since. All three got filled in only a few hours. I timed the flow with 3 100% full barrels: 39 seconds to fill the 10 liter bucket, so that's 15.4 liters (4 US gallons) per minute. The weekend is supposed to be sunny and hot, so it's good to have 650 liters for watering

[Piwoslaw]

I replaced the 1/2" globe type faucet in the first barrel with a 3/4" ball valve. Now it takes only 33 seconds to fill the 10 liter bucket, giving a flow of 18.2 liters (4.8 US gallons) per minute when the barrels are full. But what is more important is that when the barrels are almost empty, the flow is much quicker than with the 1/2" valve. Now, the water flows quite fast from the first barrel, then (after I stop filling the bucket) gets replaced from the other two barrels.

[Daox]

That sounds like a pretty good flow rate to me. Not bad from just some simple hardware store stuff.

How much money would you say you have into it as of now?

[gasstingy]

I like the system performance and from what I see, I like the install, too.

Curious though, is the garden hose at the bottom the only interconnection between the barrels? I know that will work, so just checking. There is a rain catchment system in my future for both my house and the work-in-progress garage and I plan to copy someones working system. No sense reinventing the wheel, so to speak.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by gasstingy

Curious though, is the garden hose at the bottom the only interconnection between the barrels? I know that will work, so just checking.

Yes, the rain from the gutter pours into the first barrel and from there goes through the garden hose to the second and third. Barrel #3 has a 3mm hole at the very top to let air (and, unfortunately, mosquitos) in/out, barrels #1 and #2 each have a 3/4" garden hose at the top for overflow.

The set-up is working quite nicely now and I'm fighting with myself to not go and look for more barrels

[Piwoslaw]

Small update:
The barrels are doing well, the only downside is still their being too small
Last year I stopped using them in late September when the first frost came, this year I want to keep them as long as possible, ie while the daytime temps are above freezing. I keep telling myself that there is enough thermal mass to keep the water from freezing, and this has been true so far (the nights are 2-3°C below freezing, daytime temps are 5-10°C above), except for one small detail - the barrels don't freeze, but the hoses which connect them do I'll have to pour all the water into one barrel, which should hopefully hold up for another 2 weeks.

[NeilBlanchard]

I'm wondering on how we could set up a rain barrel to exclude mosquitoes? A fine mesh filter on the top? This would also let air in.

[Piwoslaw]

A mosquito net is what I have on the top of the barrel which accepts water (see picture in the first post). It serves quite well as a filter to keep leaves out, though finer things like dust and pollen still get through. The other barrels have lids and a tiny (2mm) hole to let air in/out.

[Piwoslaw]

Update:
Last year the three 220-liter barrels weren't enough for our needs, so this spring I got two more. One got hooked up to the rest, the other is installed in front of the house. So we now have over 1000 liters of rainwater capacity
Only this year it rained pretty much every few days(*), not much but enough for the garden to not need watering, and the barrels to get topped off. So since spring the barrels have never been less than half full.

The barrels will get cleaned and stored for the winter, but I would like to finally adapt the old well to water storage. Unfortunately, at the moment I lack time, money and inspiration to go ahead and do it. Our neighbor has expressed interest in acquiring 1-2 barrels once we are done with them.

*) Paradoxically, the last 15 months have had very little rain. Yes, it has rained every few days this summer, yet not enough to make up for the dry autumn of 2011 and winter with almost no snow. In fact, while our barrels spent most of the summer topped off, the Vistula river (only 4km away) beat its low water level record by more than 10cm (56cm, previous 68cm), the lowest in the 400 years that it has been measured.

[gasstingy]

Thanks for the update. I like having a bit of extra capacity, because we all know that it'll be extra dry again.

I would be interested in the old well converted to water storage though. I'm sure it's been done before, but I have never heard of anyone doing it.