Rain Barrels: FULL
At the beginning of this past spring, I decided to try my hand at capturing rainwater for use in the garden. I attended a class at Indigo here in Gainesville, and built the first of three rain barrels. Later, I expanded my capacity with two slave barrels that fill using the overflow from the original one. Once we got the gutters installed on the house - apparently this isn't standard equipment in Florida - and I put a few concrete blocks under them to generate some water pressure, it was just a matter of waiting for the rain. You can see a picture of my little rain-capture operation on Emily's Flickr account here. I waited about three months for enough rainfall to make the gutters drain, and yesterday I got it. We got about 1.5 inches of rain as nearly as I can tell, and the gutter that drains into the rain barrel clears probably a little over 20% of our roof. The result? 150 gallons of pure, beautiful rainwater, captured for future use! Now, I have to install that overflow on the third barrel, to keep it ...
Posted on June 11, 2008 6:28:14 PM EDT
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