Water & Land UseRainbarrelsA rain barrel is a simple container designed to collect rainwater from rooftop areas and store it for future use in your yard. Rain barrels help to reduce harmful rooftop runoff, while saving you money on your water bill. GHI has approved two rain barrel styles that can be connected to your downspout, and have a spigot that enables you to hook up a hose for watering.
GHI's Sustainable Design and Practices (SDP) Ad Hoc Committee has identified two rain barrels suitable for GHI homes – a 75-gallon model and a 132-gallon model. Both meet high technical specifications, and are relatively inexpensive.
GHI offers a bulk purchase program to help reduce the cost of rain barrels for members. Orders are typically placed twice per year in the spring and in the fall. Notice of order periods is advertised in the GHI Communicator. Members wishing to install a rain barrel for their unit must complete a Rain Barrel Request Form Members may install barrels themselves or request Fee-For-Service installation. All installations are subject to final approval by GHI Staff. Members are required to correct any deficiencies at their cost. For more information or if you are interested in ordering a rain barrel contact Rean Seecharran
Why is having a rain barrel good for my yard? Your lawn, flowers, bushes and other plantings prefer natural rain water to chlorinated tap water. Why is getting a rain barrel good for my wallet? Installing a rain barrel will result in a direct cost saving for GHI members by reducing the amount of water they need to purchase for irrigated lawns and landscaped yard areas. According to the Maryland Department of Environment, as much as 40% of residential water used is for outside uses. How does using a rain barrel help the Chesapeake Bay? If you don't have a barrel, rainwater that flows through your downspouts becomes polluted runoff as it picks up chemicals, gasoline, animal wastes, fertilizers, grease and silt from roofs, streets, and yards. This polluted water then flows into streams and creeks, and eventually ends up in the Bay harming wildlife along the way. By storing rainfall, a rain barrel also helps to slow down the flow of water that comes off of rooftops. When rain barrels are emptied a few days after a storm, the rain water can be absorbed into the ground instead of rushing from downspouts into underground pipes or streams where it causes erosion of streambanks and harms aquatic life in the stream. Why is getting a rain barrel good for GHI? In many areas of GHI the underground stormwater management system is aging and the old pipes are not able to handle the volume of the rainwater in heavy storms. This causes backups of storm drains next to homes. Each year the GHI coop spends approximately $103,000 on resolving drainage problems and repairing underground stormwater drainpipes. Installing a rain barrel can help reduce GHI resources and staff time devoted to dealing with rain runoff problems. This also helps to reduce coop bills for all GHI members. Why can't I just use a garbage can or other large can as a rain barrel? Even the best built trash cans are not designed to hold water, and often warp and crack open under the weight of the water. (A 60 gallon rain barrel weighs 500 pounds when it's full!) Also, a rain barrel needs a secure lid and quality screening in order to prevent it from becoming a drowning hazard for children and a breeding place for mosquitoes. How much rain water does a barrel really collect? The amount of water your barrel collects in a year depends on the size of the barrel, the size of your roof area, the amount of rainfall per storm, and how often you empty your barrel. Larger roof areas will capture more rainfall than smaller roof areas and heavy rains will generate more water volume that light rains. But a long, light rainfall will generate a surprising amount of water. Obviously, bigger barrels will collect more water each time it rains but once the barrel is full it will not collect any more. So a smaller barrel emptied more often will capture more total rain water than a larger barrel that is emptied less often. You can calculate the volume of water your barrel might collect using this simple formula: V = A² x R x 0.90 x (7.5 gal./ft.³)
where
V = volume of water in gallons, A² = surface area of roof in square feet, R = rainfall in feet The chart below provides some sample measurements for comparison purposes:
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