Rewilding My Lot

I have two 50-gallon rain barrels here, collecting rain water off the roof behind the house. It’s a small, simple system, but nevertheless this allows me to avoid using faucet water most of the time. For instance, now in September, I think I have used a hosepipe only three times this year (ironically, the third use was to clean one of the rain barrels since it had been emptied and disconnected).

Each barrel has an overflow pipe at the top, which directs excess water into the garden. On both of these barrels, this hose had split.

I am less concerned about water spilling out of the hoses than I am about insects (particularly mosquitos) entering the barrel. So I have sealed the hoses back up with duct tape and PVC garden tape.

While I was waiting for pond electrical work recently, I had to disconnect and move one of of the rain barrels. When it was time to move it back under the eaves, I pivoted it 90 degrees from the original position so as to make better use of the nearby space. This required me to switch the overflow drain pipe to the opposite side and close off the original hole that I had made. (These rain barrels come with options for drainage holes on both sides and to activate them you punch out a plastic disc.)

Moving the hose from one side to the other was easy. Then I had to find a way to seal off the original hole. Fortunately I was able to find a handy cap from Home Depot that could be secured over the opening.

So now the repaired and cleaned rain barrel is ready to go back into service. The next time that it rains when I am home, I might need to adjust the position to optimally catch roof runoff, although I can’t place it too close to the house else I can’t access the faucet. The open end of the overflow hose is only temporarily placed for now. Eventually I will dig a channel into which it can drain, but I have to wait for some other things to happen before I can do that.