Rain Barrel Question - Tara???

Boo&BugsMom wrote: So, what do you do with the rain from the rain barrels? Water the grass? Garden? I saw them at Home Depot the other day and I thought it was a neat idea. They were a bit pricey, but I could eaily scrimp and save for 1 or 2 of them if it meant using less of our homes water...which isnt' nearly as good for watering plants anyways.

PrairieMom replied: I am going to use them to water my garden and plants. The water pressure you get from one won't run a sprinkler, so anything you would use hose end watering for you can use the barrel water. The nicer looking ones are def. more spendy, but IMO they are worth it.
For perspective, I set mine up friday, it was raining, but not so hard. I was actually out IN the rain setting the thing up. You know, the kind of rain where you don't really walk any faster from your car to the store, but you still now its raining. In the barrel I set under my garage eve, which is the smallest square footage of my roof, and only off one side of the garage, ( 2 stall) I collected over 55 gallons of water in 3 1/2 hours.
That is a LOT of water. When you think about it, every time we flush the toilet, it takes 1.5 gal. of water. I basically got 30-ish flushes worth of water in 3 1/2 hours for FREE from mother nature.

Boo&BugsMom replied:
So how do you hook it up? I thought you just placed it in the rain.

PrairieMom replied:
you do, basically. but you have to elevate it somehow, I used a single row of landscaping bricks, and you have to cut your eves to dump onto the barrel. We had to re-route one of them.

moped replied: THis might surprise you but we have been talking about getting a few rain barrels, if there was any way to hide them a bit.

I wasn't sure on how to get it all going either - I am sure I can google it right?

How much $$ do you think you would save on your water bill?

PrairieMom replied:
There is a TON of info out there. You would probably like these..

http://www.gardeners.com/Rain-Catcher-Urn-...default,pd.html

To much $ for me. Go figure.

It depends on how you use your water. Last summer when I quit using the sprinkler on my lawn and just did hose end watering I saved $80 in one month. But I didn't have the greenest lawn either.

moped replied:
Yeah those are nice, but I am not big on the terracotta look - any nicer ones out there?

Boo&BugsMom replied: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...uctId=100660637

I like the rock one here. Sure it's not "shnazy", but where I'd put it, it wouldn't really matter anyways.

moped replied: I like these!!!!

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...de=cii_13736960

PrairieMom replied:
Annnnnnnnnnnd she's GREEN ladies and gentlemen!!!!

coasterqueen replied: Yes! (both hands in the air ) Someone else besides me concerned about how they would look in their yard. See, I'm not all bad.

Tara- I know I've asked this before, but Ryan and I were talking about these last night and wanted me to ask (I couldn't remember what you had told me before) - how do you use them as a hose? I mean do they have enough pressure like a hose? That's what we use to water our garden. Also, we are looking at putting a drip system in for our garden and hanging tomato plants - can u use those barrels to do that - enough pressure?

moped replied:
Aren't you the funny one today!!!

You will be happy to know that my city is delivering our recycle barrels next month (big ones with wheels) and I am quite excited to pay the $8 non optional fee. No sorting required.

PrairieMom replied:

PrairieMom replied:
they won't have enough pressure to power one of those hand held sprayers, Mine run about like if you have your hose turned on at about 1/2 power. I think. I will know more when it actually rains here and fills my barrels so I can try them out.