Nice Day To Empty A Rain Barrel

KEY POINT: Rain barrels are great, and NYC has given away thousands of them. But they only help us reduce flooding IF:

• they are hooked up

• they are emptied during non-rainy days

• they are cleared of debris once in a while

Some tips and photos on that below.

(And hey, if you have a rain barrel sitting unused, don’t feel bad as I’m sure you are not alone. Check out the link below or email us and we can try to help you figure out how to install it).

I have been using the rain barrel which the city gave away this past summer. Wrote about that experience a few months ago.

So consider this “Part 2.”

After getting it home, a trip to hardware store for a hacksaw to cut the gutter, and then setting it up, I’ve now probably spent 2-3 hours getting to know my rain barrel.

And it’s working great.

After each storm, I give my rain barrel a gentle kick to feel if it is full. The “thud” tells me I’m doing good.

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My NYC DEP rain barrel holds runoff from part my roof, stores about 55 gallons. That may seem like a drop in the NYC sewer bucket, but if 20,000 of these rain barrels were actually hooked up around key parts of NYC, that would be 1.1 million gallons of water diverted from our old sewers at critical times. And rain barrels are good in a few ways:

• Good in storm: ⛈️ reduce localized street flooding and sewer backup

• Good in drought:🌵 storing water for outside usage (water plants, washing stuff), reducing demand on city’s drinking water during drought times - like this fall

• Good psychologically: 😇  the “thud” when it’s full tells me I am helping me and my neighbors…that’s a feel good

Q: When full, can I just open and drain it?

A: Best to use hose, get water away from building

You could just open the spigot at the bottom… but chances are your rain barrel is near your wall and foundation. So you should want to keep water AWAY from your foundation - use a hose if you can.

Q: How long to empty it?

A: About 45 min

Unless you have it raised up and gravity pulls the water - or a pump hooked up - it takes a while. But during that time, you could play with your phone, or you can peak in the diverter to see if it is clogged up.

Q: Why should I look in the diverter or hose connection?

A: To see if any residue “gunk” could block flow

There is gunk that gets in the diverter from your roof water runoff: shingle granules, leaves, trash. It can clog the little filter and the hose…or build up in the barrel and block the spigot at bottom making it harder to empty in the future.

Q: Diverter now clean, is that it?

A: Suggest you rinse the hose, too

The crinkly grey hose that connects the diverter to the rain barrel also holds gunk in it. So while you have it disconnected, take it and rinse it out too. In fact, you can use the hose and the water draining out of the rain barrel to do that.

Q: Which hole should diverter hose attach to?

A: Reconnect hose to the TOP hole

On the city-provided rain barrels, the diverter has four holes (with caps) on each side, a higher one and a lower one.

Use the HIGHER hole to reconnect the hose. This way the roof gunk settles on the bottom and will not interfere with water flow going through the top hole connection.

Q: If water freezes in diverter or barrel, is that bad?

A: Technically yes, but your call on if/when to disconnect

If it looks like a longer period of cold weather is coming, and water freezes in the diverter or the barrel, it could cause them to crack and become leaky. You don’t want that.

But NYC winters are now more wet than snowy / cold as we are officially a “sub-tropical” climate according to the NOAA.

So, personally, I plan to keep my rain barrel open and flowing during the wet winter, but that means I need to ensure it is empty before freezing weather spells.

If you would rather NOT remember to empty it before freezing temperatures, and just shut it down for the winter, the basic steps below with pics:

1. Drain rain barrel completely

2. Disconnect hose between diverter and barrel

3. Pull out the inner “water slide” part of the diverter

4. Install the white foam rectangle wall inside the diverter

5. Turn the water slide around and place it back in the diverter

» Tip: It may feel a bit hard to nudge out that inner water slide piece… but if you pull it towards you and wiggle it, it will slide it out. Then reverse it. And once you place the foam rectangle inside, you can re-insert the water slide snugly back in the diverter box so it faces the opposite way. Now, with the slide in the “winterized” position, when the water comes down it hits the slide but doesn’t get diverted to the rain barrel and will instead flow straight to the downspout below.

Video on that winterizing set up from Rainbarrel.ca which provides this equipment to NYC DEP here:

Q: Any “duh!” moments?

A: Yes, don’t forget to shut the valve after draining

I did! Emptied it. Rolled the hose up. Felt like everything was good. Next time it rained, my barrel was basically empty. I had simply forgot to close the spigot at the bottom.

Last thoughts

Yeah it’s a little work, but it feels good to see the water stored and then moving it out on drier days to the drain (…or the garden if you are lucky to have one).

Given the climate conditions we have seen recently in NYC - including both flooding and drought - rain barrels are a small example of scaleable tactics to not only keep water away from our homes but also to SAVE water for re-use; both will become more important in near future. Good to start practicing those basics now.

Closing with some random rain barrel set ups to inspire you and show you that they can get cooler and bigger. 😅

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