Testing My "Questionable" Rainwater Harvesting System in a Storm! 🌧️

We got a few storms in a row, so I had to test the IBC tote and rain barrel system. After a few iterations, I was able to collect over 600 gallons...twice! A good sign for the future of rainwater capture here at the Epic Homestead.
0:00 - Rainwater Capture System V1
1:53 - Rainstorm System Test
4:25 - Draining Barrels
7:27 - Rainwater Capture System V2
9:16 - Second Storm
IN THIS VIDEO
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[@Derrick_Harvey]

I love how you are showing the whole process and how it isn’t perfect!

[@freakygardener8033]

The best way to teach, is to not only show success, but to also show failures.

[@PRDreams]

This is awesome Kevin! That "Flash Gordon" special effect 😂🤙

[@ThomasEricWendt]

nice unique flare for a vid. I like it

[@ringailetervydiene5942]

Seeing how you collect water makes me want to rethink our water collection. The rain we get in our garden could probably sustain us through all season without having to use other sources of water 🤔

[@ohio_gardener]

Most people greatly underestimate the amount of water that comes off a roof during a rain shower.

[@dogslobbergardens6606]

There are online calculators that will figure out the total gallons, based on the square footage of the roof and total inches of rain. It's kind of astounding how quickly it adds up.

[@rockgardner]

100 sq. ft of roof will collect approx 50 gal/inch rain.

[@maknyc1539]

@@rockgardner ok

[@MrJoolsi]

1 liter per sq meter per mm of rain

[@ivacheung792]

Impressive amount of rainwater collected! 🙌 (You’re probably on it already, so sorry to barge in with unsolicited advice, but if you can, getting some screens on your barrel openings will save yourself a world of hurt later on!)

[@epichomesteading]

Def will :)

[@darragh5054]

Omg you would pray for a rainy day Id give anything for a sunny one 😂

[@TheBeautyJournals]

Yes I’ll trade Epic Gardening one rainy England day for some sunshine

[@dustinlight4716]

"Life is what happens while you're busy making plans." Fun video!

[@melw3518]

In Australia you have the gutters on all sides of the house to divert the water (and not end up with puddles next to your house which may cause damage over time). However, perhaps you need to add more rainwater collection systems/tanks to most of the corners of your house to maximise the collection of water. We have 4 (almost like a square) with rainwater tanks on each side to collect the water and even a short shower gives us a lot of water.

[@joybautista7612]

I love how you were able to show the change in your set-up throughout a few days and we can see the great results in almost real time. It's so inspiring to see you build up your new homestead!

[@rayannemarlow3341]

Love that you are showing us the iterations! So often we only see the perfect solutions and gardens. Love watching your property evolve and grow! Thanks for bringing us along.

[@incremental42]

I would elevate the overflow barrels to make sure the top of the barrels is slightly higher than the overflow valve on the main tank. Then you won't have to worry about leaks around the lids or what might happen if you accidentally left the cover off of one of the barrels.

[@PaulFisher83]

Agreed. If the overflow on the IBC tank is higher than the rain barrels, it'll overflow first at the rain barrels first and youll be in mud bath central. Have you thought about a French drain to take water away from the footpaths and house foundations? You could pipe to a nature pond, to encourage frogs...etc for pest control.

[@marcushernandez1010]

Glad someone mentioned the tops of barrels vs overflow pipe. I saw that and was like "Aghh!". Overflow pipe never going to engage with the current setup.

[@ronk4073]

Quick thinking! I've been planning my water harvesting system as well. I noticed the water coming out of your hose was pretty slow. I know yours is a temp system right now, but maybe the next time the IBC tote is empty you should raise it higher. Every 28 inches you raise it gives you another 1 psi. A cheap, easy, and strong solution would be cinder blocks and wood pallets. Both are designed to hold literal tons of weight, and can be found for free. A single layer of cinder blocks on the ground as a base and then stack wood pallets on top of them. Maybe 9 cinder blocks for the base, then stack 4 pallets. That would raise the tote up an extra 32 inches. That'll give you an extra 1.152 psi. And that's your min pressure. From a full tote you'd have almost 3 psi of water pressure. Half full you'd have about 2 psi. Not bad from free materials. You could raise it as high as you like with pallets, so long as you keep the top of the tote below the height of your gutter.

[@conniemcgehee2851]

i have just one rain barrel. I always hook up a 50 ft hose to the overflow valve on the rain barrel and put that hose under my fruit trees so the overflow waters my trees .

[@ZokomoTV]

Kevin, I think you would enjoy using a Rainwater Harvesting System from Aquascape to have on a Fountain or Pondless Waterfall. Or, you could get a pond, then use the pond water to water all your plants. I think you would appreciate the ability to plant all the various marginals that would blossom and attract pollinators to your homestead. They also attract birds because they can drink from the water, those birds in turn will eat those pesty bugs in your crops. I know a couple contractors in your area who would do a great job on a project like that.

[@mariateresacontrerasvargas1140]

hahaha, I loved this video! All those unexpected issues with the rainwater systems and the freaking out every time you are in the middle of fixing it, and there is a storm coming! My bf and I have had a bunch of those days, getting completely soak during storms trying to fix the system, but it is fun, and it is absolutely worth it :) We expanded our garden a lot this year, building 4 16x3.5 ft raised beds, and we were super scared about the water bill. It turns out we reduced our water bill to less than half compared with last year and all our plants are loving the rainwater

[@mariafolch8067]

Congratulations Kevin for making "The List" on TV. I was excited to see you on the screen along with Summer from "Plant One on Me" & Laura, from "Garden Answer". You guys have come a long way on KZbin. Glad to be a subscriber to all three channels.🤗🌾🌿👍👍

[@epichomesteading]

Appreciate that! I did not know I was on it

[@bushbunny8340]

Love your truthfulness and creativity, designs and fails, redesign and reinvention . Sotainable systems are always fluid, changing season to season.

[@KatarinaClaire]

It's nice to see your troubleshooting with the rain water capture. Considering most of us do engage in some level of trial and error during our path toward self-sufficiency it's inspiring to see your ingenuity at work during the interim before the final system is in place. And, hey, you're getting water and that's a beautiful thing!

[@pcatwell]

I have 2-55 gal barrels collecting rainwater off my roof and that sustains my small garden all summer. The only problem I have is that there isn't enough natural head pressure to make watering by hose easy. So I either have to raise the barrels higher or install an inline pump. Your system works well for a quick adhoc build. In the words of Mike Tyson, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." :D

[@Pixics]

maybe just connecting it to a drip system works better?

[@shalabible962]

I totally know how you feel! Just got my rain barrels fully connected and we’ve had a torrential downpour for the past week! My rain barrels are totally full and my yard is still flooded. But it feels SOOOO good to be collecting that rain! Next, we need a video about using drip irrigation from a rain barrel. I already have drip installed at my faucet...but haven’t yet figured out how to do drip from my barrels.

[@lvh912]

Nice work Kevin. I was wondering if you looked into the swale system design that Bill Mollison, and now Geoff Lawton, talk about in their permaculture teachings. It would allow you to use your soil as your water storage system. Capture water in swales, let them spread the water across your whole garden (veggie garden and orchard) and then let it soak into the soil. The water builds up into the soil over about 7 years (on average) where it reaches its maximum "soakage" capacity and makes your soil a lot more resilient to both droughts and floods. IMO, that would even optimize your rainwater system even further as you'd only need to use the water from the tanks during prolonged droughts. Geoff has a nice video about it on his KZbin channel!

[@melissam6320]

How fun! I love my rain barrels... Even in Florida, we do have droughts... Though rare! But the tap water is really gard and captured fresh water is so much better!

[@dulcsalvi88]

PERFECT TIMING 👌🏽 I was just researching this today! Have to give it a try and learn along the way. Thanks so much 😊

[@Altaree1]

I love seeing the iterations on your design. It shows how to scale up and how to deal with issues.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

6:10 When mother nature is so impressed with your rainwater collecting system she blesses you with superhuman speed! Or is it thanks to your organic diet?

[@epichomesteading]

Bit of both :)

[@LarixLyalliiAlpine]

Oh, goodness that was a lot of water all at once! My first thought was "gosh, if Kevin had a basement it would definitely be flooded" But that's because that's what used to happen at my house during big rains 🤣 thankfully we have a gutter now but need to get more rain barrels. My little yard garden itself uses up all the water in our single barrel as it is and I'm planning on significantly expanding it this year.

[@cherylmorris611]

Very interesting. I like the progression of your solutions to controlling the flow. Keeping what works and looking for solutions to what doesn’t, leads to a successful gardener.

[@munapulido9054]

I want to build a rainwater system like this, a use it rains here all the time. It would be perfect to save on water especially in Mexico.

[@audreydeneui192]

Yay!!!! Good job catching the rain! Don't fret over what got away!

[@philcote9]

Instead of waiting to make things all nice and perfect you definitely might as well hack stuff together! Nice work man

[@epichomesteading]

Thanks!

[@cathyfrancis1951]

WOW is your yard starting to look amazing

[@sparkasaurusdonna]

Way to come up with a quick system to collect that fabulous rainwater! Can't wait to see what the final version will be.

[@GCaF]

Well at least the plants are happy :) Awesome job Kevin! I can't wait to see the full system in action...for now it looks like the orange barrels would overflow in between their lid before the white pipe gets anything in the trench... you could take advantage of the moist soil (caused by the heavy rain these days) to dig a proper trench and drop a tilted pipe in it. It is a lot of work but I think you would also enjoy it :D

[@NevinNolte]

Looking forward to seeing you tackle the water pressure issue coming out of your rain water harvesting solution. I need some help with that too!!

[@Ash-xx5zd]

I enjoyed the video. We can watch all the new variations and watch how the design evolves over time and revelations of problems.

[@Thestupidlittlegirl]

I've been actually thinking of capturing some of our rain in AZ for my newly established garden, so I'm glad to see this process and get some tips!

[@JEK]

That is an awesome rain collection system. If you are a passionate gardener there is no excuse not to collect rainwater. Check with your local city there are many times programs giving away free barrels. With droughts year after yr in CA more homeowners should look into these to offset depleting reservoirs.

[@luanllluan]

I didn't know that I need Kevin wet & wild, but now I just don't know how to live without it xD great video, man!

[@aveureaquest]

This is amazing! Showing the failures helps give ideas of what may happen

[@janzebuski3559]

Congratulations on the rain! Live & learn with the 1st rain collection. But more importantly!!! Congratulations on your grant!!!👍🌿

[@happinin07]

Looking forward to seeing this system moving forward!

[@on_another_level5661]

Love it! This really has me excited about my own rain catchment project I have in the works. So cool.

[@Pixics]

how much do you plan to catch, I want to catch 1000 gals if I can.

[@kimberlyd317]

I can feel your excitement! What a fantastic learning experience.

[@QueenKaleGardener]

My heart jumped at 6:20. Thought you got shocked! Should have known since it was the second time you used that transition! 🤦‍♀️

[@catharineorellana3522]

Kevin PLEASE raise those rain barrels UP HIGHER off the ground to get better water flow pressure. I've got mine 3' high off the ground on concrete blocks.

[@rhondabarlow860]

Good video. You gave me a few useful ideas as I plan my rainwater catching system. Thanks 💕🌱

[@maggiemanzke7926]

What a wonderful thing - claiming rainwater! Any is better than none, so congrats on the progress!

[@ConnorJohnGriffin]

That's pretty awesome that you're getting a grant to step up your rainwater collection, what a cool thing for the city to do. Back patio grow tent at 4:25, got anything good growing in there?

[@msabercr]

for the back patio roof you can just get some flashing to come up around an inch to an inch and a half over the roofline and that will funnel the water into the existing gutter that drains into the IBC.

[@marisap09]

I’m in the LA area and have a rainwater collection capacity of around 250 gallons. I got two barrels free from the water district giveaways and 3 barrels from reclaimed food grade barrel vendors connected using the Blue Barrel Systems model. I’m also looking into incorporating a cistern like the Bushman Slimline and an IBC tote. I use my rainwater well into the summertime to water my fruit trees and garden.

[@Pixics]

I just googled these cisterns and they are huge. I want one now.

[@epichomesteading]

The bushmans are amazing

[@marisap09]

@@epichomesteading Australia sure knows how to do rainwater harvesting the right way. I haven’t seen it catch on in the US as much but I guess that’s our role!

[@robrowles]

If you elevate the tanks you could get a little more pressure. Also the the wider the feed line from the large box tank and chain of barrels will help quicken their fill rate and reduce the overflow before the system is full. I know you may not want to use electricity but you have solar power, you could try a marine bilge pump (dc voltage) with a float switch to move water across the yard. Put screens on the inlets if you use a pump.

[@zcvb26]

Water looks dirty . Will you purify it before pouring in for plants or this water won't affect the plants in any way ?

[@epichomesteading]

It's just cause the tanks are dirty, but won't really affect plants esp if I use fast

[@The_True_]

Water can be tricky to deal with, so it's good that you have a solid plan in place to get it where you want it. Can't wait to see that cistern setup, since I used to have pipe dreams of a small water tower design myself. Needless to say, my ideas were a bit too ambitious, unlike your more practical approach. Lol. Great job Kevin and Jacque! 👍💯🌦

[@1MzSyd1]

Love love love!!!! GOALS. Im saving money to get a nice looking rain holding "tank" my house has full gutters already this is definately a goal!

[@danieldow3094]

Well it's not stopping raining, genuinely exactly how I felt, probably around the exact same time lol. Great video and congratulations on the grant! That is epic!

[@jakefrechette3224]

Loved the addition of the effects to make you super speedy! Are you the MCU's next Quicksilver?? It gave us a chance to get a little extra personality from your video style and I think it's great! Keep it up Kevin!

[@steffany3513]

Great video! I love watching the process. I’m surprised by the amount of rain you had. Loved the flash lol

[@chrisburke92]

Nicely done! Wet pants uuuuugh but not too bad of a problem at all though. Everything is coming along so quickly! Thank you for capturing as much of this journey as you can!

[@BlackDogDesigns]

I just love your videos and I’m thrilled you got rain🌧💦🌦 We are in the Eastern Sierras in Big Pine, we’ve gotten quite a bit of snow in the mountains but not much rain here in The Owens Valley🪴

[@JXHNDRX]

Wow. First video I've seen from you. I love this!

[@thisfool89]

I got excited and skipped all the early spring plants and went right to the summer plants

[@farmyourbackyard2023]

Connect your barrels at the bottom and they will fill simultaneously. Add ball valves to each outlet on the barrels and you have a fully controlled system. On the last barrel, add a 50 foot water hose to the top and this will be your overflow.

[@epichomesteading]

Thank you! That is far better

[@farmyourbackyard2023]

@@epichomesteading You guys did a great job working on the fly. Especially since you don’t have a whole lot of water or rainfall. You might look into having Brad LANCASTER give you a consultation on planting water. It’s a fascinating study! You can look up his KZbin channel and find a ton of information. I think it would be right up your alley.

[@farmyourbackyard2023]

Also make sure you get the biggest diameter hose you can for the overflow.

[@Joy1957K]

I think I smiled all the way thru this. 😍 Well done Kev !👍👏👏👏💓😘🇦🇺

[@susang4507]

Yay! Rain!!!☂️💖

[@ammarupayabbay6986]

Good job kevin i got a new idew because of this video salamat ng marami

[@martinlaukkanen1652]

Fall's gonna be wet where i am but i have several 5000 gallon tanks, i put 15 gallon bins for overflow. They're close to building with pipes overhead.

[@deanwinchester6654]

Cool video, missing out on collecting rainwater, at least spring is nearby. Getting a 2nd barrel connected to collect more.

[@cindysalem7194]

Great information! LOL "wet" san Diego not usual and I LOVE how you took advantage of it! Able to see the catchment and the volume of water. Yup. Nice.

[@garyhovey9305]

Cool to watch the trial and error process

[@sniperstalker1538]

Hi Kevin, thank you for the epic content ! having a big cistern is a great idea, you will be prepared for everything you will plant in your garden ! The only "little" prep I see is about the looooong trench and pipe you want to put : you can't grow anything above ( or you would need to dig deep, and i don't know if roots could be a problem). What about planing a walkway or something esthetic to cover up the pipe and not "loosing" the space ? it is a little bit of work but i think it will worth it !

[@epichomesteading]

Yes good idea!!!

[@desireereynolds577]

We have 3 rain barrels daisy chained together. But ours are all connected through the bottom. That way they are fill at the same time and they all drain at the same time. I was able to use food grade barrels with the 2 in pvc holes and connect them and put one spicket on the end of the line. It works great. We have our barrels off the ground for easier gravity feed to our drip lines.

[@desireereynolds577]

Hey is the video my husband made last year after we finished gluing it together. We are not vloggers so it's a rough video but I just looked back at it to see that.it does in fact show the plumbing aspect for you to see. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6C6Y4amqah5nKM

[@Pixics]

Yeah, I can see it being better if they are linked at the bottom.

[@desireereynolds577]

I think when they are linked at the bottom, they fill at the same time and best... They can be drained from one point instead of each barrel.

[@epichomesteading]

Good call

[@epichomesteading]

Much smarter!

[@Eric-fl1kh]

Beautiful!

[@pascalxus]

Looks like things are shaping up really good! I thought of adding some rainbarrels where my water collection was, but then I realized the rain barrel costs 70$ much more than the cost of the water I saved: 1 rain barrel is about 50 gallons which is 25c of water. That means it would need to fill up 280 times to recoup the cost of the rain barrel and we just don't get that much rain where i live, not even over 20 years. But, I've calculated how much money you'd save from all that rain water your collecting. With a 1000 sq ft home and 10 inches of rain per year in san diego, you would save almost 1000 cubic feet of water per year! thats 7480 gallons. That would be a savings of about 35$ per year if your water costs 3.50$ per 100 cubic ft. That means, over the next 50 years, you'll save 1750$ in watering costs! Even more, if you include inflation.

[@PaleGhost69]

Looks like you could benefit from dug down and mulched walking paths that can act as swales distributing the overflow around your grow space. Infrastructure is one of the best things you can do for a system.

[@carollem5580]

Congrats! Help is on the way! We get to learn :) 😃 😌

[@dogslobbergardens6606]

Love it. You're already miles ahead of where you were before this. It may take a couple seasons to get your system really dialed in, and that's OK. Sometimes people let the pursuit of perfection paralyze them from doing anything... forget that noise. Get something going with what you've got and improve it as you go along. Just one little bucket or carboy under a downspout is better than nothing at all.

[@TheGentGaming]

Look into how it's done in Australia - we have a kickass system with an undrground sump which pushes water out of various taps in the garden at greater-than-mains pressure. Big ole 5000L and a 2,000L tank. Life is good. You can even fit them underground so they're out of sight. There's also a concept called "swales" that you might want to consider researching. Natural way to store groundwater in hot climates. All very permaculture-y food forest-y that someone like Geoff Lawton can explain better than I.

[@epichomesteading]

Wow greater than mains, that's amazing

[@ke3347]

Love those copper gutters!

[@AmySchweitzer231414]

Bless improvisation and good old PVP!

[@pancakeday4866]

This is inspiring me to take a look at my rainwater runoff and see if I can harvest some (I’m up in L.A,). Love hearing about all your wet pants.😂

[@misskittycatcat123]

This is so cool!

[@MistSoalar]

new merch! epic rainwater!

[@vlong7112]

So exciting! And imperfect.. such is life :)

[@The_Digital_Samurai]

Might need to raise the barrels off the ground a bit to increase pressure.

[@catharineorellana3522]

Agreed! I've got mine on concrete blocks 3' up off the ground.

[@thersgarden3144]

Free water 🌧. I am also looking to set up a rain water collection system.

[@chrishernandez9277]

For the shed one maybe some sort of funnel would help since it doesn’t line up perfectly

[@leslies9172]

Has to be one of your funniest videos ever, thanks for making my day brighter!

[@epichomesteading]

Hahaha love to hear it

[@JPPL]

Flash Gervin! Loved the entire video!

[@danielkazimi3969]

I live in Washington and you could fill your system in a few hours if not less during some of our daily downpours. (though almost nobody collects rain water) some of our excess water flows into a pond (its about 500 gallons and fills in about one or two days from just one gutter sprout) and we have a underground natural tank (I think its like 10,000 gallons) and it overflows all the time in the winter. I would collect rain water but I have cleaned my gutters before and that stuff smells .I would not want to drain it, or use it for any household things, only thing is for my garden but then I have a well so water is not super expensive anyways

[@laurafedora5385]

Your place is really coming together! If you put your rain barrels up on cinder blocks the water will drain faster. Will your orange barrels fill from the bottom? The overflow did work, if you look it I think poured out past your trench. But it did work to divert it away from your house!

[@rachelyates7473]

Honestly one of my favourite videos, partly because I am obsessed by rainwater capture and have tried similarly weird and wonderful systems, and partly because of the "and now I have no dry pants' comment. Have you considered using old wine barrels for capture? I am currently considering creating a 'water wall' with wine barrels stacked winery style, and possibly a pump system.

[@matthyland1218]

Found your channel(s) this week from the Chad and Steve podcast, couldn't have been better timing, we're planting a ton of stuff and I've been catching up on all the videos to help us with the mistakes we made the last couple years

[@garden_geek]

So jealous of your rain. It’s been so dry up here in NorCal this winter. I hope Sierra Nevada sponsors you because you’re always rocking their hat!

[@epichomesteading]

Stay tuned...

[@rgespejoiii]

Hi, jun from the Philippines. I suggest building an underground cistern for your rainwater harvesting.

[@teresab7885]

It snowed here near fort Tejhon thank you and your family for your awesome videos 😇🥑🌲🐕‍🦺🌻🐝🐞🍅🥕🥔🍆🍑🍐🍋🥬🧄🧅congratulations

[@mishachevalier9754]

Very cool!! I'm excited about building ours this year. Good luck with yours!! Love the "flash" movements!! Oh yeah....what's better?? Overflow connections at the top or bottom of tote??

[@bryonyhellis]

It’s all trial and error, great to see the tweaks you needed to make 👍

[@jessicar4717]

🙃 get some screens on those barrel openings before they become mosquito nurseries! Looking good though!

[@tonyavalencia-lopez9393]

Funky or not.. very cool vid! 😎❤️

[@downundervlogs]

I just love rain, when my watertank overflows back to the down pipe storm water drainage I get about 6 buckets and start emptying the water tank because I cant bear to see all that water go down the drain.. funny isnt it, Im still saving water but dont like seeing go down the drain. I fill up my washing machine with the buckets. Very rewarding. Love your novel special effects. Maybe you could use that system for a drip system too.