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Rant: Hit 1000 gallons of rainwater collected and it hit me hard
I set up a 50-gallon barrel off my shed roof back in March, just for watering garden beds. This morning I did the math and realized I've collected over 1000 gallons since then. That's 1000 gallons of city water I didn't pay for, and honestly it made me feel stupid for not doing this years ago. Anyone else have a number like that make you rethink your whole setup?
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aaronsullivan13d ago
Daisy-chaining a couple extra barrels onto my downspout was the game changer. It went from a nice little side thing to actually watering the whole garden without touching the hose.
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sanchez.mary13d ago
I read a piece from a local conservation group that said the average household uses like 300 gallons a day just for outdoor watering in summer. 1000 gallons is nothing compared to that, but it does show how fast it adds up. My neighbor set up a 200-gallon system last year and he said it paid for itself in 4 months. Makes you wonder why more people don't at least try the cheap barrel route.
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jadej5013d ago
Think the 300 gallons a day number might be a little high for most areas, @sanchez.mary. From what I've seen with our local extension office, a typical suburban lawn needs about an inch of water a week, which works out to around 0.62 gallons per square foot. So an 8,000 square foot lawn would need about 5,000 gallons a week, which comes to around 714 gallons a day if you're watering every day. But most people don't turf that much, and they water less in cooler weather. Your neighbor's experience with the 200-gallon setup is encouraging though, even a small barrel system makes a dent if you're strategic about what you water with it.
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@jadej50 I saw a report that said half of summer water use goes to lawns, so those 200-gallon barrels make sense for gardens.
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