I replaced my two 50 gallon rain barrels with three 650 gallon cisterns.
Why three smaller cisterns instead of one? I needed narrow cisterns that I could, with the help of my sons, move to the back of my home. They were also better looking.
Why put in cisterns? Because I pay attention to the present and the future is not to hard to predict.
View from our patio.
Another view.
And yet another view.
THE DETAILS
First flush deverter going down the wall. The pipe to the right goes to the cisterns. ( Those are not my palm trees. I would dig them out if they were.)
Pipe with rain water passing over the overhang that I built and it dumps into the cisterns on the right.
Connecting the three cisterns to each other. The pipe configuration allows for flexibilty in the hookup for when we have an earthquake.
THE OLD BARRELS
I put the old rain barrels on the side of the house to store non-potable water water for stuff like flushing grandmas toilet when the water company srews up again.
Final note: I got through a Southern California summer using only 17 units of irrigation water.
