Make Your Own Rain Barrel, the Ultimate Guide

If you’re looking for a cheap rain barrel, consider making your own. If you’re going to recycle rainwater, why not start with recycling items to make a rain barrel. Look around your yard first for container or parts, like diverters, you can recycle. If you can’t find the right containers, there are recycling programs that take the 55 gallon barrels.

I’ve gone through the internet and collected the best rain barrel plans out there for building your own rain barrel. There are a ton of sites out there for do-it-yourself rain barrels. So, to save your time and focus on actually putting a rain collection system together, check out these pages. These are the resources with the best user friendly directions for making rain barrels. There are also some videos further down the page.

Tips for Making Your Own Rain Barrel

• See what tools you need. Make sure you have what it takes to make rain barrels before you buy the parts.
• Collected water is not for drinking.
• Use a food grade barrel. You do not want a barrel that has stored any chemicals.
• Secure lid for safety of children and pets.
• Use a screen to keep mosquitoes from laying eggs in the rain barrel.
• Often folks will raise a rain barrel to make it more accessible, or to raise the spigot.
• Check out your yard for something to elevate it, like cinderblocks. Make sure the rain barrel is level.
• While making one rain barrel, why not make another? Link them together to prevent overflow during rainy seasons.

Make Your Own Rain Barrel Plans

City of Bremerton, Washington: Make Your Own Rain Barrels
This is an awesome resource with tool list, brochure, and diagrams for making rain barrels. Here’s the link to the actual brochure with instructions on how to make your own rain barrel from the City of Bremerton.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Build Your Own Rain Barrel
This is an eight page brochure that has step by step instructions for building rain barrels. Different source from the other resources since it includes a very detailed sample budget for tools and materials, budget worksheet, and links to organizations that may fund rain barrel making projects for schools or other organizations.

Southwest Florida Water Management District: 5 Easy Steps to Building a Rain Barrel
I liked these instructions because they are not over complicated. Five simple steps to building a rain barrel and a video make it pretty simple to build your own.

Mid-America Regional Council: How to Build Your Own Rain Barrel
This site is a great resource with easy to follow instructions, and a simple tool list. These instructions show that you don’t need a ton of fancy tools to make a rain barrel. The EPA’s build your own rain barrel instructions are also provided by the Mid-America Regional Council.

Bridging the Gap: How to Assemble a Rain Barrel
Check out these do-it-yourself instructions for assembling a rain barrel. These are great instructions with a photograph with each step. You can really see how to make the rain barrel.

Videos on How to Make Your Own Rain Barrel

This video is from Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s rain barrel workshops. It is an easy to follow demonstration and the video has great tips. The PHS suggests not putting the spigot for the hose too low, allowing the sediment from the rain water, roof, and gutters to settle on the bottom of the rain barrel. This keeps the sediment from clogging the hose. They give some other great advice on how to keep mosquitoes out of the barrel. It’s a short video, and worth watching.

Newton County Water and Sewage Authority made this video on how to build rain barrels. This video follows the step by step process to making a rain barrel. It doesn’t skip ahead or leave out any instructions, so it’s a good one to watch to see exactly how to make one. Also, the guys keep making jokes so it’s easy to stay tuned in to the video.

This video has a lot of steps to it, and I think it could be easier to buy some ready made parts for rain barrels. But, if you want to start from scratch, check out this video from Lowes. If you are unsure what parts you need, you can write these down and then take them to your local store for an associate to help you find them.

Want to learn more about Rainwater Harvesting?

Check out American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association’s resource list for rainwater harvesting for tons of information on rain barrels and rainwater harvesting.

Not sure how to find a food grade barrel?

See if your local Habitat Restore recycles 55 gallon barrels.