17 November 2008

Lowering the water bill

During the recent drought the 1/8 or so Scots part of me was severely pained whenever I saw the spouse watering her flowers with the outside hose. Still, I know how much she enjoys her annuals and perennials so I wisely kept my mouth shut.

But that made me think about how we could save a little water and change if we get another dry spell. It wasn't long before I thought of a rain barrel. I'd seen them occasionally over the years and thought why not, as it looks almost foolproof.

Google turned up a lot of ideas but also the realization that buying one from the online gardening websites could be pricey. One example of what was being offered is this 60 gallon number for $209!

Then I lucked out and found this DIY rainbarrel from the City of Raleigh, NC. I think that's the one I'm going to do next year. Lowes should have everything I need and under $50 total. I've bookmarked it.

2 comments:

Fish-2 said...

I had forgotten about rain barrels. It was commonplace in the little town of my childhood. Many people use the water from the rain barrel to wash clothes, feeling this "soft" water did a better job with the crude soaps they had back then. The design looks simple and easy. If you created a stand under the barrel it would give you a little more gravity assist for watering too.

Anonymous said...

I didn't mention it but I had planned on elevating it about 18 inches or so.

In fact, if it works out I might "hook-up" 2 or 3 more barrels together to have more storage capacity. That'd be a simple task to do, also.