This is a throw-back to several years ago when we built a Rainwater Butt solution for our plastic house, but a nifty little project all the same!
Our homemade plastic house was 10sqm, just under the council planning rules, so perfect to raise our seedlings. We had a mission to go from Zero to Gardening Hero and create enough growing space to feed a family of 5 for a year. We had our work cut out for us! Keen to collect rainwater from its roof with the intention solely for garden use, we created a Water Butt collection system that could store 500 litres.
This project however, needed no commercial water tank but a series of plastic bins that feed into each-other using gravity. We’ve always been into DIY, upcycling and recycling where possible, or buying ‘cheap’ accessories for our homemade solutions. This project started with the concept of using a wheelie bin however we decided to make it ‘bigger and better’ so acquired several every-day black rubbish bins with clip-on lids ($10 from your local DIY store).
The concept in this train-like procession, is that once the main water butt is full (in this case our 240 litre wheelie bin) an overflow back-fills the other 80 litre bins by way of connecting pipes.
You’ll see by the photos how we did it and can adapt a suitable DIY solution for your garden. If you are keen to follow our instructions, this is how we did it:
Materials
- 240 litre wheelie bin
- black drainage piping
- 2 x plastic taps
- 3 x 80 litre black rubbish bins with clip-on lids
- 32mm plumbers pipe
- threaded plastic washer/joiners
How To
Position the Main Water Collector: Place the hero and biggest water butt (in this instance a large wheelie bin) at ground level, adjacent to the guttering. Drill a hole through the plastic lid and poke through the black draining pipe that is connected to the guttering. A quarter of the way up the water collector drill a hole and insert a basic tap. It’s useful to keep it high enough off the ground to fill up your watering can. This tap is one of two dispensing outlets.
Create a Gravity Stand: Depending on the number of ‘storage water butts’ you wish you use, create a gravity stand for them to rest on. Ensure it’s sturdy and can hold the weight of several full water butts. We’ve used concrete paving stones, concrete blocks and a sturdy wooden structure to keep the area level.
Drill a Feeder Hole: In the main water butt, drill a 32mm hole and insert a connector pipe with threaded washers. Position the hole so it is beneath the top of your ‘chain’ of water storage butts so excess water drains from this main ‘tank’ into the next, once full.
Subsequent Water Butts: Connect the remaining water butts at a lower level using the same 32mm piping. On the end tank, insert a second tap. This enables you to withdraw water from the main wheelie bin (with the 240l capacity) or the smaller butts as the water levels lower in the heat of a dry spell. Seal around taps and connecting pipes with waterproof sealant.
So there you have it! I hope you can adapt something similar for your garden shed or plastic house. It allows great water storage, a self-sufficient source for your garden with a little help from Mother Nature.
