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Not the best rain barrel in world but it works!
21 July 2007A few weeks ago I decided that it would be a good exercise to try out some different rain barrel designs. It seems that many people only have access to the large white or blue barrels that are used for transporting detergent and soft drink syrup as opposed to the olive barrels that we have been using. Many of the companies that sell rain barrels commercially use these barrels probably due to the fact that it is much easier to obtain them.
Before I start, there are a couple of gotchas that you need to watch out for with these barrels:
1 - Getting the top of is hard work. This means that it is much more difficult to secure the spigot from inside the barrel.
2 - They are $10 more the expensive then the olive barrels (in Ottawa)
3 - White barrels do allow some light through the plastic which can promote algae growth in the water (we learned this one after only 2 weeks)
These barrels are not well suited if all you want to do is cut your down spout and use an elbow joint to angle the water to the top of the barrel. I supposed we could have just cut a hole in the top like we do when we are using an olive barrel with a one piece lid but the plastic is very thick and cutting it even with a power saw would have been imprecise and labour intensive.
We went to RONA and bought an eaves trough end piece and 2 plastic elbow joint to catch the water an divert it into the barrel. The overflow and spigot were the standard issue that we have used for our other barrels. This help get around having to heavily modify our downspouts. Then we simply attached the metal screening on the top. See photo below.
One thing that my son and I did was to paint the barrel. We bought some plastic safe spray paint and went at it. This helped to dull down the blinding white colour so that it would blend in to the landscape a bit better. This was fun but costly. We used 2 cans of spray paint @ $7.00 each. I know using spray paint is not very green but so far, neither is this barrel 
In the end the barrel in working fine except for a bit of algae growth but it cost us close to $40 more then had we used a regular olive barrel. It also took us more then an hour more to build it and 10 minutes more to wash it out.
I am sure that with a more sophisticated diversion system this type of barrel would be fine, but in the end it cost us quite a bit more time and money then the ones we had built previously. Perhaps that is why the commercial companys charge $150 USD for a barrel when and we can charge people from $60-70.
Here is our finished product:
on May 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Tools:
-Drill
-1″ paddle bit
-jigsaw
Supplies:
-barrel
-plastic spigot 3/4inch (Ace Hardware $2.49)
-flex spout used to route the guttering to the barrel ($3 at home depot)
I used the blue barrel because like you said, the white is blinding and also the blue doesn’t let light through.
1. Use the paddle bit to drill a 1 inch hole then thread the spigot. Use a little silicon if you have it (don’t buy, keep this project cheap) but it’s not necessary as the plastic fits tight enough not to leak.
2. Decide where you want the inlet and mark it using the flex tubing as a template.
3. Use the paddle bit to drill a starter hole then use the jigsaw to cut out the inlet.
4. Cut the guttering off making sure not to cut to high above where the barrel will sit or the flex tubing won’t reach the barrel inlet.
5. Reuse the downspout that is cut off and install it as the overflow. Using it as a template, marke an area two inches from the top of the barrel then use the jigsaw to cut out the hole for the overflow.
6. Flip over the cut piece of guttering so the elbow fits in the overflow hole and use a couple of wood screws and inprovise a strap (plumbers tape, wire) to secure the overflow to the barrel.
7. Done.