Where to source water tanks, barrels, storage vessels?

Any advice on cheap, free water storage vessels? Repurposing, recycling being ideal. Potential for between 1,000-2,000 gallons rain catchment from one building and up to 1,000 gallons from another building. We have a few 55-gallon drums, barrels, looking to supplement and take next steps.

We bought an IBC tote off of Craigslist for $30. It had been used by a homeowner for storing extra pool water (chlorinated). We rinsed and aired it out for about a month before we set up our small catchment system.

I'd suggest Craigslist or Ebay local delivery. There are probably better availability options elsewhere, it's just that we had success with that.

Interested to hear others' ideas, as we'd like to expand our water storage tanks as well.

I get the blue 55 gal food grade barrels from the local brewery for $5.

Cool, thanks! I happened to come across this article with suggestions on sourcing barrels, etc. for rainwater.  I really like the idea of sourcing from local breweries. Today I saw three barrels outside of local businesses and picked up an oil barrel (~42 U.S. gallons) from a carwash as attendants encouraged me to pick it up from the dumpster area. They are more common than I realized. Thanks.

Isaac Gold wrote:Cool, thanks! I happened to come across this article with suggestions on sourcing barrels, etc. for rainwater.  I really like the idea of sourcing from local breweries. Today I saw three barrels outside of local businesses and picked up an oil barrel (~42 U.S. gallons) from a carwash as attendants encouraged me to pick it up from the dumpster area. They are more common than I realized. Thanks.

The trick is to find ones that haven't had damaging/dangerous chemicals in them. This is why breweries are often suggested. We once scored a bunch that had been used at a hospital, but they still had the original label on and we knew enough about the chemicals listed that I wasn't worried about watering plants with anything in it that might leach a bit. "The dose makes the poison" - healthy soil with lots of microbes can handle a little bit of yuck, but too much and things can die.

Here is a company that sells recycled & cleaned barrels with rain water catchment kits for about $100 per barrel + kit + shipping bluebarrelsystems.com price per gallon ranges from $1.68 to $0.93 depending on how many barrels you order.

Think about installing a bigger tank.
They would be available from Tank suppliers.