DIY

OUTDOORS

BARREL WATER COLLECTOR

Make wine into water (sort of).

By Chris Barnes and Michri Barnes

Many people let the rain that falls on their roof run away, then they use drinking water piped in from afar for washing floors and watering plants. Here’s a handy, mosquito-proof rain barrel we put together that buffers 55 gallons of water and adds a handsome accent to our yard. It’s especially valuable during droughts, and if you’re in a rural area with wells and electric pumps, it also means being able to flush the toilet when the power goes out. The barrel and fittings are also suitable for potable water, but don’t store graywater, or pathogens can grow.

Our barrel sits under an eave of our house, where even on foggy days it collects water that trickles down. You can also put it under a downspout, or anyplace else outside where it will capture water.

And if you’re really ambitious, you could have a series of barrels and move the pump from one to the next, or even interconnect them.

130 Make: Volume 18

1. Make holes in the barrel lid.

Lay out the following holes on the barrel’s cover and drill them with the hole saw. You need one hole near the edge for your pump’s down tube, and two more for collected water to drain through.

Use a strong drill, and draw the hole saw out to clear away sawdust every once in a while. It also helps if you remove some wood from the hole by chiseling across the grain at the edges (Figure A, opposite page).

When you smell wine, you’re almost there. One of our plugs fell in, but that’s no disaster; it just means there’s some wine barrel in our wine barrel.

Cover the drain holes with screen to keep out mosquitoes and debris. I cut two 4" squares with a straightedge and utility knife, then folded the edges in and stapled them down (Figure B).

Photography by Michri