How to Set Up a DIY Rain Barrel: from Installing the Spout to Catching the Rain

Rain barrels are a great way to store water for use in the lawn and garden. Not only do they bypass the cost of using the municipal water system, but they also avoid the medley of chemicals used to “sanitize” that water. Of course, natural rainwater is much better for the plants.

Luckily, setting up a rain barrel (or a repurposed IBC tote) is fairly simple even for those who aren’t DIYers (assuming your house already has gutters). While it is possible to buy ready-to-roll versions of them, rain barrels can be easily constructed from repurposed barrels with just a couple of fittings and a couple of tools.

Going DIY with your rain barrel aspirations will make it cheaper, as well as even better for the environment. Rain barrels will utilize gravity-fed rainwater (no electric pumps or chemicals required), and using secondhand barrels will mean no extra materials or energy are required in constructing the largest item for your catchment system.

Setting the Barrel

Most rain barrels are about 55 gallons, so when they are full, they can be almost 500 pounds. In other words, the rain barrel needs to sit on something solid. It also needs to be higher than the area that will receive water from it so that the water is moved by gravity rather than electricity.

Some people choose to build wooden stands for their rain barrels. If that’s for you, just make them strong enough to hold 500 pounds. A simpler solution is to find four cinderblocks, stacking two on top of two to get the barrel sufficiently high to water plants below it.

• Important Note: The platform that the barrel is on should be as level as possible to prevent the barrel from tipping over when the weight of water is in it.

From the Gutter to the Barrel

Ideally, the barrel can be situated so that it can use an existing downspout in your gutter system. If that isn’t the case, a new downspout can be installed in the gutter system. There is a small metal insert available at any DIY shop. You need to cut a hole in the gutter, silicone the insert into place, and hook up a downspout, either a piece of pipe or a downspout piece matching your gutters.

The downspout will either feed into the top of the barrel, or there is a rain diverter kit that will catch water side the downspout and divert it to the barrel until the catchment is full.

• For feeding into the top of the barrel, it’s a matter of cutting a hole in the barrel lid and fastening a bit of screening over it to keep debris and insects out of it. The downspout should sit directly atop the hole.
• For diverting the water, the diverter fitting should be installed into the gutter downspout a little higher than the top of the barrel. It should then be connected to the barrel using an accordion hose.

From the Barrel to the Garden

The first step in this process is installing an outlet at the bottom of the rain barrel so that you can access the water it has caught. There are several options for doing this, but using a bulkhead fitting allows you to seal the inside of the barrel and use a standard hose bib on the outside.

Putting the pipe thread of the hose bib should match the female thread inside the bulkhead fitting, either ½” or ¾”. Use standard thread seal tape to prevent leaks from forming between the bulkhead fitting and the hose bib.

With gravity powering the water, the hose bib can either be used to fill watering cans to use in the garden, or it can be attached to drip irrigation hoses to slowly release rainwater into the garden when it is needed most.

Do It Yourself

While it’s possible to hire someone to install a rain barrel system for you, it’s a lot more fun, significantly cheaper, and seriously empowering to do it yourself. So, it’s worth giving it a shot. It only takes a few tools, a few fittings, and a few hours.

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