How to Use a Rain Barrel as a Sprinkler System - YahooVoices

A rain barrel is often overlooked as being bulky and providing little real use except to collect therain. A rain barrel can often be a source of things like a sprinkler system with a little work and timewhich will save you money on your water bill. Everyday there are gallons of water that is collectedby a rain barrel and then dumped or never used again. You can actually put that water to good useand provide yourself with an excellent sprinkler system which will save you time and money in thelong run. Using a rain barrel as a sprinkler system is fairly easy and it does not require much effortor tools.

To use your rain barrel as a sprinkler system you are going to need just a few different materials toget started. You will need the rain barrel, a water hose, downspout divert, concrete blocks and asoaker hose. You can get all of these materials at your local hardware store or improvement store forabout 30 dollars. Once you have collected all of your materials from the store then you can startworking on your rain barrel sprinkler system.

The first thing you want to do to make your rain barrel sprinkler system is to install the downspoutdivert. You should use a downspout that is close to where you want to place the rain barrel but youdo not have to be right beneath the downspout. A lot of downspouts use a hose to divert the water soyou just have to make sure that the rain barrel is close enough to collect the water.

Place the rain barrel in a desired location of your choosing, this can either be in the open or you canconceal it. If you have a rain barrel you are proud of that you designed or created then you mightwant to leave it in the open rather than conceal it behind a shed or tree. This is the time where youwould use the concrete blocks to attach the rain barrel so that the water flow is better.

The plumbing is thenext step to design yourrain barrel sprinklersystem and it is fairlysimple. A lot of the timeyou can get a plumbingkit with your rain barrelbut if you did not thenyou can get one at ahome improvementstore for about 20dollars. The faucetneeds to go on the baseof the rain barrel and itshould still beaccessible from thatlocation. You want tomake sure the faucet isstill accessible from the

bottom of the rain barrel because the rain barrel will hold a lot of rain which means it will be pretty

heavy.

The watering system should be ran next which probably means you will need to install the soakerhose. A rain barrels rain barrel will probably not have enough water pressure to function as asprinkler system by itself so the soaker hose will help. The soaker hose also helps cut down on theevaporation that you are likely to get if you use a rain barrel alone which means more water for yoursprinkler system.

Ifyouwanttoyoucaninvestabout10dollarsintoati

mer for your rain barrel sprinkler system. You can get a timer at your local hardware store or homeimprovement store and they are really great to have if you are a busy person. The timer will shut thewater off at a certain time so you do not have to worry about turning the water off. Some timercontrols even allow you to setup a clock so it can turn the sprinkler system off and on at a set time

each day. That is the last step you have to do in order to transform that simple rain barrel into asprinkler system. This will save you money on your electric and water bills and it will also help youconvert unused water into a useable sprinkler system. This whole project should take you less thanone hour to install and will provide you with years of joy and entertainment. The rain barrelsprinkler system is also very nice because no rain barrels wiring is involved and there are littlematerials needed for the job.

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