Yeah, the indian summer here in Baltymore is over. We’re now back to the low 90’s with typical Maryland humidity, which is to say, wet like a sponge. The beginning of June was idyllic, and I only wish I’d gotten out and taken more advantage of it. This weekend saw the long-awaited continuation of 2004’s outdoor projects—I finished reglazing the living room windows and replaced the storms. I cut in the rest of the siding on the South and West sides of the house, as well as scraped and painted a ton of exposed wood on the porch. By the time 5:30 rolled around, I was hot, tired, and ready for November.
I intended to get the first rain barrel installed in the southeast corner of the house today, but gave up on that pretty quickly after 5PM. The trick is to elevate the barrel so that gravity will do the work of irrigation for us, which means building a platform to put it on, diverting the gutter around a corner and into the top of the barrel (literally, a square peg in a round hole) and fitting an overflow valve. The hardest part will be the gutter portion, based on what I’ve found at the various Home Superstores around town, because there isn’t anything made for this particular application—which means I’m going to have to get creative with PVC and flexible tubing. Then again, I could just buy this peculiar-looking contraption, or perhaps this even stranger-looking thing.I think I’m going to look some more at Lowe’s first, because neither of these things allow for getting around a corner.
Try the flexible gutter extensions from Lowe’s first:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=20111-339-1601&lpage=none
They’re cheap and surprisingly tough; that’s what I use to divert into my rain barrel, and it works fine. They also fit together if you need more length or bend radius.
We have several of those on the house right now, but they don’t look at all like they’ll divert into the (MUCH) smaller hole that the rain is supposed to enter the barrel through. I’m also suspicious of them because they are definitely contributing to the erosion of the dirt on the rhododendron side of the house. It doesn’t appear to me that they divert anything but our dirt!
Plus, I don’t know what kind of maroon designed the rain barrels we have, because they for sure don’t look like the holes are big enough for the size God meant gutters to be. In fact, Bill and I took the plug to Lowe’s to measure to see what kind of contraption he could build, and whoa. Our little plug was weensy!
I’ve got the great big ol’ green barrel with the big opening on the top that’s covered by a screen to keep the larger funk bits out. I forget that they come in all shapes and (plug) sizes!
Yeah, we have the same thing, but I’d like for the majority of the water coming off the roof to go in the barrel, not on it.
It was sitting out behind the garage all last summer, and by the end of the season it was full of water, just from the garage runoff. I’d like to capture more of that water quicker, if possible.
I’ll post a photo of my setup (if you can call a flexible gutter extension, two cinderblocks, and the rain barrel a “setup”) tomorrow…