Outdoor Sink With Rain Barrel

I've been wanting an outdoor sink ever since my brother in law brought his chickens to our house this spring. It seems that it would be nice to have something elevated where I could fill the waterer by turning on a faucet. Where I don't have to find the end of the hose in the dark. I saw this design in a listicle about outdoor sinks.


It looks like that one plumbs the gutter into the rain barrel. Maybe the faucet gets water from the rain barrel. Or maybe it is plumbed into the house's water supply. I imagine that the top of the rain barrel is screened to keep big chunks of dirt out.

I also like the counters that double as drying racks, like the one below from pinterest. Most of them are made with hardware cloth. But I imagine that wood slats would do the job as well.

The first pic looks to me to be AI generated, so most likely doesn't exist in the real world. A frustration with Pinterest and Google image searches now, every time I go looking for something, so much of what comes up is not real and wouldn't work as shown if one tried to make it real.

It would be possible to set up something similar with the sink on top of a rain barrel, but it would need a good filter and some sort of pump to bring the water up to the sink, like a hand or food pump, or a small electric pump like those used in boat or RV plumbing. The main issue would be that the water in small rain barrels like that tends to get leaves and dirt in there but are too small for the stuff to settle out and the water to clean itself like it would be in a much bigger rainwater tank. Our small water barrels are fine for watering plants, but I wouldn't want to use the water to wash produce or for anything I'd like clean water for.

I'm looking at setting up a garden sink, I will probably put a multiple hose connection on the existing garden tap and run a pipe to the sink tap from that. Or less convenient but with more flexibility for where the sink can be located, fill a water container from the garden hose and put that above the sink.

I love the produce washing rack idea!

The simplest way to connect a rain barrel would be to have the sink below it and a sturdy wood frame holding the barrel up. To keep debris out of the plumbing, a false bottom and a screen mesh filter from a homebrew store should do the trick. You can wrap fabric around the mesh filter to trap finer particles. I would also keep the mesh filter a few inches off the bottom so anything that makes it through will settle.

Jane Mulberry is absolutely right -- a rain barrel is a fully charged petri dish. Sure, I will rinse the dirt off my hands with that water and my plants don't mind one bit, but I have no illusions. On that basis, I personally think a sink fed by a rain barrel would be mostly pointless and rather unsanitary.

Outdoor sinks / workstations can be brilliant though. I plan to build several this year, having scrounged double stainless sinks for free. These will be fed with pressurized well water to a short hose to soak/blast the dirt off carrots and such. Sure, I can do that in buckets but it's easier on the back to stand upright. They will also be portable and set up so the water will drain onto friendly trees. We're in a drought -- not a single drop shall be wasted!

I built one. Uses a foot pump just like the sink in the Willow feeder.

Yes, it is NOT drinkable water—but way better than the chicken poop or whatever else was on the hands.  Super handy out by the garden.

R Scott wrote:I built one. Uses a foot pump just like the sink in the Willow feeder.

Yes, it is NOT drinkable water—but way better than the chicken poop or whatever else was on the hands.  Super handy out by the garden.

I see your point. Yes, that would be handy. As long as the user is mindful of the water source, it really can't do any harm.

I agree with Jane, the first image is AI foolery.

There's a few different ways you could approach your goal, which sounds as much about convenient water as it is about having the sink.

1.) Get or make a garden hose stand with a faucet. Made for seasonal use to have a hose faucet somewhere other than the exterior wall of your house, either in front of dense bushes that hinder using the faucet behind, or far away from the house to save walking a long way to control the water. You wouldn't need to search anymore, it would be where you choose it to be, like at a chicken coop.

2.) An elevated barrel with a faucet, located near the garden or chickens, holding water at the point of use. You would refill it periodically, and it could require less time/effort/skill on most days. It could  also be a reserve, if a power outage means no water for you.

3.) Setup a sink fed from the house (wash station, picture 2) and have a "rain barrel" as a catchment, for irrigation later, and less mess now. The bench/drainboard is handy for keeping things off the ground.
3a.) combination of 2 and 3.

4.) A rainwater harvesting setup, that has an elevated barrel/bucket to allow a convenient faucet height, and could have a lower barrel for overflow rain. You could include a sink, with a catchment for the drain.

5.) A buried water line from your house to a frost-proof hydrant, in a convenient location (garden, coop, barn) allowing year-round access to water. It's a big job, once. versus coping with freezing cold weather, seasonal startup/shutdown tasks, or frost damage.

AI foolery or not, I think that is a splendid idea.  And I appreciate Jeremy for sharing.

Here is one idea that I found:



Source

Anne's photo is showing what Ian suggested, and yes, it would work fine as long as there's not a need for very clean water.

The first pic Jeremy found is beautiful, and it's such a shame it isn't real!

Great suggestions here!

I have a few laundry sinks I plan on setting up outdoors.
If I were to use rainwater in them , it would probably be sand filtered rain water.
Even filtered, it could go "bad" in storage, but a solar powered aerator would help with that.

More likely I would use potable water and direct the wash water water through a mulch vermifilter filter.
I've even thought that it could have the vermifilter in the lower part of the deep sink  basin, or in a bucket within the basin.

Not necessarily directly related to water catchment, but check out Herrick Kimball (guy behind planet whizbang) and his design for toe tapper faucet switch. I think he used to sell parts for these, but also he has design details to DIY. "Hands-Free, Foot-Operated Water Valve For An Outdoor Sink". It connects to a hose. Not sure if that is helpful, but I always thought it was a pretty cool design.

This is the link to the website. Toe Tapper Switch

If you want to keep the water potable try adding a little peppermint oil to the top. It will create a layer of oil on the top to keep mosquitos out. Pull the water from the middle or the high bottom. Or run the water through filters. If not possible add some baking soda and lemon juice it will alkalize the water.