I recently moved to Vallejo from San Francisco. I had installed a rainwater recovery system back in San Francisco which captured over 1,000 gallons of water for use in my garden. I wanted to duplicate and improve on a new water storage system here. I brought one of my 205 gallon tanks with me to my new home.
The rainwater collection was way on the bottom of my “to do” list until I spied these decorative 50 gallon rain barrels at the local Costco. Hmm- I thought I could install these at my place with a minimum of effort. Of course if I had a pickup truck or a small van buying and transporting a 50 gallon rain barrel is not a problem. A small car hmm. I didn't have a tape measure with me so I thought I'll come back later. Wandering through the store I said to myself, “No I'll buy one now if it doesn't fit in my back seat I can always return it.” “And who knows maybe they'll all be gone next time I come to the store.”
I dropped the rain barrel into my shopping cart paid for it and headed to the parking lot. IT FITS! I knew I needed some diverter downspouts and some other hardware so I dropped by the local hardware store nearby. Of course I was so excited that the barrel fit in my car I bought enough stuff to retrofit 4 rain barrels. In the past week I purchased 3 more barrels and set them in my yard; each one next to a down spout.
Saturday I decided to hook up one of the barrels and see if I needed further equipment or tools. Of course gutter fittings look like they should fit together smoothly and they almost did. With a little tugging and whole lot of mumbling some bad words, I convinced the parts to fit together. With that success I started hooking up a second barrel Tuesday knowing it would rain Wednesday night and Thursday day.
Wow! Now both barrels are full of rainwater. I am going to reuse this water right away. I am planning to get a five gallon bucket of rainwater and use it to flush my toilets! That's fifty flushes.
Now I have to install more rain barrels interconnect them and save water for flushing, and gardening. Oh did I tell you the water is free!