IBC Tote Project

I have successfully set up this system of IBC totes to collect rainwater off the barn roof. I piped it downhill to the garden and food forest. Bought everything at local hardware stores, except the totes. 1 inch of rain yields about 180 gallons.

What a fabulous project! Definitely worth the work, I'll bet.

Tereza Okava wrote:What a fabulous project! Definitely worth the work, I'll bet.

YES! I was toting 5 gallon buckets back and forth for the past few months LOL

Great job, love that you used black IBCs and that most of the pipework is hidden.  For some reason I really appreciate a rainwater system that is out of sight enough that the point of use appears no different than a domestic water supply would, rainwater catch  doesn't have to be weird or complicated

Are the totes being supplied with water through the two garden hoses? If so, how does that work out in a heavy rain? In my old system, there were times when a 2" x 3" square downspout wasn't quite enough to keep up with the massive amount of water flowing through.

Looks like a pretty sweet setup! I'm planning to install something similar this summer. Is there a reason the first tank is higher than the rest?

Benedict Bosco wrote:Looks like a pretty sweet setup! I'm planning to install something similar this summer. Is there a reason the first tank is higher than the rest?

Hubby says that increases the pressure at the output of that tank, which would mean when using the water, that tank would empty first. That would make it easier for the tote to harvest the water from the downspout quickly in a storm.

We'll have to see if Forrest agrees with Hubby's thoughts!

That makes sense.

Looking at it again with that in mind, it looks like that first take would never actually fill completely, because the breather pipe on the far end opens below the filled height of the first tank. Maybe that's intentional, though...

Benedict Bosco wrote:That makes sense.

Looking at it again with that in mind, it looks like that first take would never actually fill completely, because the breather pipe on the far end opens below the filled height of the first tank. Maybe that's intentional, though...

We will see. The hope is that it will increase water pressure. We will be getting more rain this week.

If gravity doesn't get you enough pressure it would be very easy with your setup to add a pressure pump like the Harbor Freight shallow well pump.  We have 2 for redundancy on our system and they work great.  We got them on sale for $30 off, just wait a bit and they'll go on sale again.  I have the pump at my tanks and a "yard hydrant" out at the garden, this pump brings that line up to 55 psi without issue and runs 3 garden hoses at once.  For our drip irrigation we have a 25 psi pressure regulator in that run to bring down the 55 psi to a drip friendly pressure.

Nice job! I really like the look of your set-up. We do something similiar, but with only two IBC totes so far. I showed my husband this thread, and he was curious if you wrapped the IBC totes, or painted, or ?

Cathy Emerson wrote:Nice job! I really like the look of your set-up. We do something similiar, but with only two IBC totes so far. I showed my husband this thread, and he was curious if you wrapped the IBC totes, or painted, or ?

They came that way if you can find some that held hydrogen peroxide they will be black. Otherwise, it is a good idea to take the plastic out and paint it a dark color to avoid algae growth.

Forrest King wrote:
They came that way if you can find some that held hydrogen peroxide they will be black. Otherwise, it is a good idea to take the plastic out and paint it a dark color to avoid algae growth.

Thanks for answering! He wrapped both of ours in black plastic this year, but yours look so smooth and neat that we wondered if you painted them. I've not seen the black ones locally (Oklahoma), but will be sure to keep an eye out.

Jason Nault wrote:If gravity doesn't get you enough pressure it would be very easy with your setup to add a pressure pump like the Harbor Freight shallow well pump.  We have 2 for redundancy on our system and they work great.  We got them on sale for $30 off, just wait a bit and they'll go on sale again.  I have the pump at my tanks and a "yard hydrant" out at the garden, this pump brings that line up to 55 psi without issue and runs 3 garden hoses at once.  For our drip irrigation we have a 25 psi pressure regulator in that run to bring down the 55 psi to a drip friendly pressure.

So far, with 1 tank half full, the pressure from the hose is like having the faucet turned on half-way. Not enough pressure for a nozzle yet. Hopefully with a full tank and subsequent full tanks the pressure will improve! If not...

I don't have power nearby, I wonder if a solar-run pump would work?

Forrest King wrote:

Hopefully with a full tank and subsequent full tanks the pressure will improve!  

You have just discovered the bane of rain-water collection. Yes, your pressure will improve with full tanks - but *only* until you use half the water at which point the pressure will be right where it currently is, and as the drought carries on, you will get to the point of almost empty tanks with minimal water pressure.

Solutions:
1. Next time the tanks are empty, raise the height they're sitting at by adding more support/fill underneath them. Every foot of height adds a calculable amount of pressure.
2. Set up garden watering systems that don't require much if any pressure. (example below)
3. As you suggested, buy some sort of a solar pump system - I've seen them advertised, but you need to assess carefully what they are capable of.
4. ??? suggestions anyone?

A local fellow set up a grey water system for his house. The property had slope, but not huge slope. The grey water went through a simple mesh basket filled with wood chips to get out some of the big stuff, then through a series of 3 bathtubs with cattails or rushes in them, which he harvested for mulch. Then he had a manifold with multiple selections, each leading to a weeping pipe under a garden bed - no evaporation of surface watering *and* it doesn't encourage weed seeds to germinate! He could easily choose which garden beds got the water when and how much. Minimal water pressure was required. However, he couldn't use this for seeding new crops where you might actually needs some surface water. His focus was on perennial plants, so this was less of an issue.

My wife and I have a solar powered cabin and we can run any appliance or other "house function" with the solar however we still use a gas generator to run our water pump.  It fills a 1000 gallon tank and we use gravity to get the water out.  Water pumps use so much power that if we ran the pump on our solar system it would use 3 days worth of power to fill the tank halfway.  Currently you need a lot of solar to run a pump, not impossible, just not economical.

Jason Nault wrote:My wife and I have a solar powered cabin and we can run any appliance or other "house function" with the solar however we still use a gas generator to run our water pump.  It fills a 1000 gallon tank and we use gravity to get the water out.

Jason, could you give me some idea how much height you're pumping your water? I'd been wondering about this regarding our back well, but figured it would be a problem, however I know that the Bullock Brothers on Orcas Island have some old-fashioned efficient pump that they use to pump their pond water up hill to travel down through their pond system a second time. Being a surface situation, their pump is a physically large machine so I do realize it's very different from our 250 ft down a pipe pump's energy requirements.

At the cabin we have a 1.5 HP well pump located in the lake and it pumps up about 400' of elevation to the 1000 gallon tank.  It is all the 8500 watt generator has to run the pump and takes about an hour to fill it from empty.  Our solar system there is good enough to run a small house (including the septic effluent pump) but we have to be careful when taking showers or using a bunch of water because the septic pump will use it all up if we aren't careful.

I don't see anything about filtering the rainwater for things like bird poop on the barn roof so it's safe to drink or is this water only being used for other purposes?

Forrest King wrote:I have successfully set up this system of IBC totes to collect rainwater off the barn roof. I piped it downhill to the garden and food forest. Bought everything at local hardware stores, except the totes. 1 inch of rain yields about 180 gallons.

What do you do with the water in the winter, question from Montana

Jay Angler wrote:Forrest King wrote:

Hopefully with a full tank and subsequent full tanks the pressure will improve!  

You have just discovered the bane of rain-water collection. Yes, your pressure will improve with full tanks - but *only* until you use half the water at which point the pressure will be right where it currently is, and as the drought carries on, you will get to the point of almost empty tanks with minimal water pressure.

Solutions:
1. Next time the tanks are empty, raise the height they're sitting at by adding more support/fill underneath them. Every foot of height adds a calculable amount of pressure.
2. Set up garden watering systems that don't require much if any pressure. (example below)
3. As you suggested, buy some sort of a solar pump system - I've seen them advertised, but you need to assess carefully what they are capable of.
4. ??? suggestions anyone?

I set things up so the water will gravity feed into an open tank right in the garden. There's a float valve that prevents overflow but keeps the tank topped up all the time. There's also a floating raft or a long natural pole in the tank so birds and bees can get a drink without drowning. I find that I can water way faster with big watering cans than any hose, even a pressurized one. A person can move a lot of water in a hurry.

Mary Haasch wrote:I don't see anything about filtering the rainwater for things like bird poop on the barn roof so it's safe to drink or is this water only being used for other purposes?

For small volumes like this, I think it would be wise to boil or filter the water for safety.

Curiously, there is hard evidence that rainwater in very large tanks stays potable as a long as a diverter is used to keep out the initial flow of crud.

Dan Skattum wrote:What do you do with the water in the winter, question from Montana

I can't speak for the OP, but all of my water catchment has to be drained before winter. It's not a waste, though. Soaking perennials like fruit trees right before freeze-up helps them survive our "freeze dry" winters.

Forrest King wrote:

Cathy Emerson wrote:Nice job! I really like the look of your set-up. We do something similiar, but with only two IBC totes so far. I showed my husband this thread, and he was curious if you wrapped the IBC totes, or painted, or ?

They came that way if you can find some that held hydrogen peroxide they will be black. Otherwise, it is a good idea to take the plastic out and paint it a dark color to avoid algae growth.

I have heard that the algae buildup is actually a biological slime/film that pulls any metals out of the water, therefore acting in a protecting fashion.  Similar to how they are discovering yeast over-growths and gut biofilms, although showing human biology is compromised, it is rather a symptom to the body's protection against heavy metal accumulation internally.   Anyone else heard of this?  I can't recall my source.  The human biology I think I might have learned from the teachings at microbe formula .com.  but I can't recall how I had heard that with regards to the water tanks.  If what I recall accurate, although algae is not attractive visually, it ends up preforming a function.

Interested in everyone's feedback.    

Kerry LaBelle wrote:

Forrest King wrote:

Cathy Emerson wrote:Nice job! I really like the look of your set-up. We do something similiar, but with only two IBC totes so far. I showed my husband this thread, and he was curious if you wrapped the IBC totes, or painted, or ?

They came that way if you can find some that held hydrogen peroxide they will be black. Otherwise, it is a good idea to take the plastic out and paint it a dark color to avoid algae growth.

I have heard that the algae buildup is actually a biological slime/film that pulls any metals out of the water, therefore acting in a protecting fashion.  Similar to how they are discovering yeast over-growths and gut biofilms, although showing human biology is compromised, it is rather a symptom to the body's protection against heavy metal accumulation internally.   Anyone else heard of this?  I can't recall my source.  The human biology I think I might have learned from the teachings at microbe formula .com.  but I can't recall how I had heard that with regards to the water tanks.  If what I recall accurate, although algae is not attractive visually, it ends up preforming a function.

Interested in everyone's feedback.    

Found some articles in PubMed attesting to what I said:

"Algae as a green technology for heavy metals removal from various wastewater"

"Use of algae for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater: progress and prospects"

Forrest King wrote:I have successfully set up this system of IBC totes to collect rainwater off the barn roof. I piped it downhill to the garden and food forest. Bought everything at local hardware stores, except the totes. 1 inch of rain yields about 180 gallons.

Fantastic project, Forrest. Can I ask a few questions?

What is the total capacity of your storage tanks? What does each tank hold?

What is your roof collection area?

I am thinking East Texas so there is no need to ever drain and even your underground lines are safe from freezing. Is that true?

Forrest, your system is beautiful!  I received a deal on framed-damaged IBC food grade Totes and have 10 tanks ganged together from our barn roof to our drip irrigation system; we move water up to 300 ft away to garden beds. We also added a Harbor Freight shallow water pump to move water efficiency and have been very satisfied with the results. We reuse pantyhose to filter incoming water, filter again at driplines, and do an annual power wash to remove alge build up and flush to nearby compost pile.  Exploring solar pumps also.

Hi. someone said they see a breather pipe on the left?  We had a mesh covered vent but frogs laid eggs in it and that was a headache. of course now we are looking for a better venting system.