The Barn Addition and Rain Barrels

The contractor finished up the work on the barn Thursday. This weekend Alan put the gutter back up, raked out the dirt and seeded.

Then the rain barrels needed to get placed. The two barrels on the other side of the barn weren't touched, but the side with the addition needed major work to get the barrels working properly. We nearly doubled the catchment area of rain water on the south side roof. We used to have two 50 gallon rain barrels, one at each corner, on this side of the barn. The corner closest to the house is now too low for a barrel so Alan pitched the gutter to the southwest corner and placed the barrel there. Last year the barrel in each corner would fill up with about one inch of rain. Tonight we finally had a good rain storm and this is what happened.

The barrels are all linked together with hoses and will seek their equilibrium, but there was a lot of air in the lines since Alan had just reconnected everything. And it was a very hard downpour. We were going to use three of the 50 gallon rain barrels and a 240 gallon tote as overflow, but the water doesn't move that quickly between barrels.  I think we need to use the 240 gallon tote on the southwest corner.
It was great using this rainwater to water the garden last year. Our well is not very deep and will run dry if I water everything in the garden, or less if I just washed a load of laundry.