I added more rain barrels.

I have quite a few rain barrels already.  I have enough to capture and store 590 gallons of water.  That isn't enough though.  I've had to get creative and find ways to fill the barrels from my house water when they are low.

Anyway, last year I put a short barrel under my deck to hold additional.  It fills from the barrels under the downspouts.  (All of my barrels are plumbed together with drip irrigation tubing.)  I decided that it was time to add more barrels under my deck.

I started by removing and inspecting the original barrel.  To my surprise, the chain on the float valve was very rusty.  I thought it was going to last longer.  I picked up some new zinc coated chain from Home Depot.  The chain cutting guy recommended it.  Hopefully it lasts longer.

Old vs. New.

New chain installed.

I contacted the guy I got barrels from before and he no longer had any.  I checked craigslist and found some in a town 45 minutes away.  That wasn't as convenient as the local guy, but what can you do?

I picked up five 50-gallon short orange barrels.  The first step was to drill a hole in the bottom of each one and install a 1/2" Uniseal bulkhead fitting.  I used a 1-1/4" hole saw to get a nice clean hole.

 I installed 1/2" PVC pipe through the Uniseal. 

Barrels ready for installation.

I had to level the dirt under the deck and place 12" patio stone so the barrels would be off of the ground and the pipes would extend from in under them. 

I had an extra float valve, so I installed it on the barrel on the opposite end.  This one will fill from the top.  The barrel on the other end fills closer to the bottom.  I figure two inputs into these barrels will fill them faster.  That's the theory anyway...

Float valve from the inside.

The next step was to add 3/4"x3/4"x1/2" tee fittings to the PVC pipe coming out of each barrel.  I only have 1/2" pipe going into each barrel, but I wanted to tie them together with 3/4" pipe to reduce bottlenecks when pulling water from the barrels.  I don't know if that was necessary or not, but it seemed like a good idea. (I'll just throw out the reminder here, that I'm no expert with this stuff.  I'm making it up as I go along.)

The last step was to cut 3/4" PVC pipe to connect the tee fittings.

The last fitting on the end barrel was a 3/4"x1/2" elbow.  A tee fitting wouldn't have worked there.  On the other end I have a hose fitting and a Y-valve. 

Now I just need to open the valve and hope that nothing leaks!