Gardeners Roll Out Barrels to Collect Precious Drops: Saving Rainwater is Good for Plants, Wallet, Environment

By Mary Beth Breckenridge, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Jul. 21–Our grandparents knew rainwater was a good thing.

Now countless gardeners are rediscovering its benefits. They’re rolling out the rain barrels to capture water that otherwise would pour off their roofs right into the ground or the storm sewer.

A rain barrel, which typically attaches to a downspout, can catch water that otherwise would go unused. Enthusiasts point out that 1 inch of rain provides 600 gallons for every 1,000 square feet of roof — water that can be used for watering gardens, washing cars or just about any use that doesn’t involve drinking it.

“This isn’t something new. I mean, this is old technology,” said Garvin Smith, general manager of Midwest Internet Sales, which sells rain barrels on the Web site www.rainbarrelsandmore.com.

What’s new is people’s interest. Smith said his company’s rain barrel sales are up 450 percent over last year, a phenomenon he credited to widespread drought and water-use restrictions in many communities. He has 28 barrels behind his home in Indiana; he said that gives him several weeks’ worth of water at a time when the area has been going two or three weeks between rainfall.

But even where rain is abundant, people are collecting rainwater because they’ve discovered that for plants, it’s good stuff.

Rainwater doesn’t have the chlorine or added salts that treated water can have, and its pH is neutral, noted Victoria Mills, sustainability director for the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes in Shaker Heights. “It’s more palatable to plant life,” she said.

Environmental benefits

Rain barrels have environmental benefits, too. Capturing rainwater reduces the demand for treated water, Mills noted. It also lessens the rush of storm water that can soak into basements, overwhelm sewer systems and spill into waterways, carrying pollutants it has picked up along the way.

Runoff is a particularly vexing problem in areas such as Cleveland, where sanitary and storm sewers are combined, said Mandy Metcalf of the Cleveland EcoVillage, a project that’s demonstrating sustainable redevelopment of an urban neighborhood, and that conducts a workshop each spring to teach people to make and use rain barrels. A storm there can overload the wastewater treatment capacity, sending raw sewage into Lake Erie.

Granted, given that a rain barrel typically holds 50 to 75 gallons, the environmental impact of one barrel is minuscule. Likewise, the savings on water and sewer bills are small: Based on water and sewer rates for a typical Akron home, 50 gallons of rainwater are worth about 37 cents.

Of course, the benefits increase with the number of barrels. On average, Akron gets 24.53 inches of rain from April through October, so with enough barrels, someone with 1,000 square feet of roof could potentially capture more than 14,700 gallons in the growing season. That’s about $108 worth of water.

Still, Mills believes one of the greatest environmental benefits of a rain barrel is its potential to raise awareness about water use and runoff. And from what she’s seen from the rain barrel workshops Shaker Lakes offers, people who start with one often come back for more — in some cases, 15 or 20.

“I don’t think rain barrels are going to solve any storm-water issues,” she said, “but it gets people thinking in the right direction.”

Terra Milo is one of the converts. The West Akron resident installed a rain barrel last week at her West Akron home and was eagerly awaiting the first soaking rain to see what it would yield — maybe enough to salvage the wilting phlox in her perennial garden.

She’d read about rain barrels in Vegetarian Times, and “I just went crazy for it,” she said.

Rain barrels are often made from recycled food drums, although Metcalf said a trash can would be an appropriate substitute for a homemade barrel. What’s important is that the container never held toxic chemicals, she said.

Practical details

Even with a food-grade container, however, you can’t drink the rainwater. Depending on the type of roof you have, the runoff can pick up bits of asbestos or fiberglass, as well as animal droppings, Smith said.

Water is tapped from the barrel via a spigot near the bottom. Most people elevate the barrel on concrete blocks or a platform so gravity will provide water pressure, but don’t expect the water to come out with the same force it would from a faucet in your house. If you need more pressure, Smith said, a pitcher pump — the old-fashioned kind you work by hand — or an electric pump can be added.

Mills recommends a closed system, in which a diverter sends water from the downspout directly into a covered barrel. A screen keeps out leaves and debris that might come down the spout. Any overflow continues through the downspout to a drain, “so you’re not going to be flooding your neighbor’s basement,” she said.

Because the system is closed and the water is deep, mosquitos typically aren’t a problem, Mills said. Nevertheless, she said people who are worried can keep goldfish in the water to eat the larvae or, even easier, add a drop of Dawn dishwashing liquid now and then.

In our area, the barrel needs to be disconnected and brought inside in winter so it doesn’t crack, Mills said. So before you start adding barrels to your back yard, make sure you have someplace to store them.

Mills hopes rain barrels will help people realize just how much water they use, as well as how much water is dumped by a storm. That might motivate them to make other changes in the way they use water and direct runoff, she said.

“It’s a small thing,” she said, “but it’s a beginning.”

Mary Beth Breckenridge is the Beacon Journal home writer. She can be reached at 330-996-3756, or at mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com via e-mail.

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