Roll Out the Barrel

By: Richard Campi

Roll out the barrel and make use of such for much! Susan Beauchamp and I use two, sixty-gallon (Plastic) ZEP containers to water the thirty-six planters on the median strip down Calvary Street from Fletcher Ave. to over the Interstate 65/70 bridges. I load these on their side in my 1950 Chevrolet pick-up truck with five, 5-gallon jugs and fill them at my house. This is a gravity-fed system with water taps and four small plastic buckets. We dispense about 130 gallons of water by filling the buckets and pouring it onto the plants and trees. We always hope for regular rain and not to need this chore!

We have been maintaining this and other landscaping projects over the past dozen years and hope to for some years to come. Grants to develop these public landscapes ask for a commitment to maintain the projects with respect and follow-through for years to come, but many projects fall out of favor and are abandoned after a few years. Friends of Historic Fountain Square Neighborhood Association has kept its commitment to these projects and were the first in Southeast Indy to have landscape projects.

Susan and I are also rolling out the barrel at our home as well. We are developing three rain barrels, one of which I’ve just completed (Hope for rain!) and two are in progress. These should each hold 60 gallons of rainwater for our home garden use. Ken Williams, who was incidentally Fountain Square’s first Santa, gave me all five barrels.

To help with the interesting and difficult job of making the rain barrels, I used Suding Hardware Store. While I was trying to explain the rain barrel idea, a plumber who was patron talked with us. He gladly drove back to my residence to help size up the project. When I went back to the store, he and the proprietor then had a more complete picture of what I wanted. I was then very personally helped with securing all needed pipe, elbow, clamps, etc. to the exact need of each rain barrel and its location. Like many home projects, this one seemed simple until I began obtaining and assembling all the extra parts beyond the barrel.

In order to install the rain barrel, the existing downspouts on the house have to be sawed off, but I want to put them back in November for winter. A plastic (rubber-like) boot clamping section is secured to the remaining downspout, a plastic elbow is clamped into that, and then a section of plastic pipe is secured into another plastic elbow that empties in the top of the rain barrel. My rain barrel tops have been cut off so that they fit back on with a hole cut out in center of top to accommodate the plastic elbow. Just an inch or so above the bottom of the barrel, I drilled a hole to insert a water faucet (threaded at both ends). A water bucket or a hose may be employed to catch the water from the faucet. A threaded short pipe screwed into the rear of the faucet and a large nut screwed onto that snug it up to the interior wall of the barrel. I needed to cut out some plastic foam to make a gasket to keep the faucet tight. If and when the barrels overflow, the loose lids will let excess water escape.

For people who desire to take a project such as this on, one needs to make sure that the barrels are far enough away from the home’s foundation as to not cause any basement problems. That distance determines the estimated length of pipe from elbow to elbow. I have my barrels mounted upon four concrete blocks. Two are regular size and two are shorter. I’ve leveled the ground surface first. I have raised the spigot about eighteen inches above the ground, so that a can or bucket fits under it. Every now and then I will need to rinse the sediment from the interior.

Remember that this isn’t a rush job. Do a small step at a time or get it wrong. I’ve put this “green” direction off for a least a couple of months. So…go with the flow! (But after all this work, I’m worried that it will never rain again!)