Selfsufficientish.com

Hi,
Like many of you we have used rain barrels to collect roof water. Our problem was the small 30 gallon plastic barrels would fill up too quickly. It bothered me that we were wasting such a valuable resource. I went looking on Craigslist and found a plant nearby selling those IBC totes that hold 1000L of liquid (265 gallons). I bought one for $40.

I must admit these practical storage units are ugly. So I put up a fence made from pallets. We'll use the pallets as a trellis and grow some vining plants. Here's a video clip of the system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmM_sRsgUM

Regards,
Chuck

$40 is for nothing! They're really expensive here - something around $130-$140!

Yeah! $40 is a great deal. The lowest I've seen has been about $100 for a used container. I did buy two actually...one for rain collection and the other for a fish tank.

Regards,
Chuck

Ours haven't lasted very long - well about 5 years but one's got a split in the plastic of the tap bit (probably from cold weather/ice) and the other has a persistant drip. The one with the split is losing 200 litres a day so isn't much good any more!!! The other loses a watering can ful a day which is OK as I just keep a watering can under the tap.

They are great though, not just the amount of water storage but the speed in which you can fill a can with them, no more hanging about whistling whilst a regular water butt tap fills your watering can slowly.........

And you got a deal on the price!