**Item: **Good Ideas Rain Wizard 50-Gallon
Price: $59.99
Shipping Options: $5 Standard
Condition: New
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I just drained and put away my rain barrel (from a prior woot offering), and just in time for the first snow of the year, here pops up one on Woot.
50 gallons is a good size, but still heavy enough (when full) that you’ll want to put something under the barrel to keep it from sinking into soil – a few paving stones is sufficient.
Just a heads up to anyone considering purchasing, collecting rain water is not legal everywhere check it out before ordering.
Why wouldn’t it be legal?
Water rights, in some parts of the west the property owner doesn’t have the right to capture the rainwater as parts of the country downstream had laws passed so THEY have the rights to the water. Colorado or parts of it have such restrictions.
Thinking this to be one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard… I took to the interwebs to find out.
Turns out that Colorado and Hawaii are the only two states where rain barrels are illegal, according to several items I read. In some cases in Colorado, with a permit, it is legal… but for many it is not.
http://pueblopulp.com/2012/07/01/really-rain-barrels-illegal
Unfortunately, this is a badly designed rain barrel, with no means of telling how much is in it except draining it or using a screwdriver to remove the filter and then trying to use a dipstick. Also has no overflow connection to another barrel.
FYI,
There are companies all over the place that have similar sizes (or larger) barrels that are food-grade quality and need to get rid of them. Basically, when they buy their products in bulk, and said product arrives in these barrels, they can send these empty barrels back to get money. But transporting them is so great, it costs more money to ship than they’d get for sending back. So they look to sell or give them away free. Usually like $5 a pop tops.
It’s beyond easy to convert into a rain barrel with a drill and a couple, inexpensive pieces. Don’t really need to be that much of a handy person to do it.
Also, fully agree a barrel where you can’t tell how much water in it is silly. Most barrels, that I know of, that are food-grade quality that would be great for collecting water, are white and, though not exactly fully clear/see-through, contents can definitely be seen.
We had one of said self-made rain barrels when I was a kid. Yes, you can make one with a little handy work, but these have a very important feature - the filter/screen that keeps bugs and debris out. If bugs and debris get in the barrel it can clog the drain spout; then you have to manually retrieve the water (hope you have long arms) and/or dump the whole thing out to replace the drain. Compared to the normal retail price I might be tempted to make one myself, but to have someone else make it, have the filter/screen, and have it delivered to my door is worth the extra $15 (or less, depending on cost of parts and cost of driving to wherever to pick up said food grade barrel, if you have a vehicle big enough to do so).
Yes, the difference is $20 with shipping but I’m factoring in ~$5 in parts to make your own.
If rainwater collection becomes illegal, one could always consider repurposing these for Donkey Kong role play. We won’t judge.
You all heard about the flooding in Colorado months ago. Water flowed all the way into Nebraska.
It sucks Colorado has this restriction, but that water ends up feeding most of the mid west.
Not that I think its a good law, just that i can see the reason.
How much money does it cost to purchase 50 gallons of water from your local water agency? Usually when it’s raining, I don’t need to collect water to water my yard. Do I store that 50 gallons until after the rainy season, then use it one time in my yard, then wait until the next rainy season to collect my second 50 gallons? Do I use this water to drink? I’m not clearly seeing any purpose to this.
@Snowymartian, this is totally believable given our nanny-state government bureaucrats.
But I’m guessing that even if half the residents of CO collected all the rainwater off their roofs, the volume-dent would be trivial.
And just where do all those brilliant nanny-bureaucrats think that rain barrel water collected water eventually goes anyway? Do they think those homeowners are shipping it out of the country?
Craziness. If I lived in CO, I’d collect all my rainwater just to spite the silliness. And make a test case out of it if they got bullyish about it.
Ummm… assuming Woot is willing to ship to CO…
“Ahhh man…ahh no. Do I jump? Or run back and get that awesome hammer?!”
“Barrel: Ultraviolet resistant polyethylene”
Is the level of ultraviolet protection better than on the crappy Rubbermaid garbage can tops?
Those tops turned from black to white and cracked after less than 18 months - stored in the shade.
I am thinking BEER…