Of the many uses our ancestors have had for rain collection barrels in the past, Man has created a situation that requires a completely new purpose for a rain barrel. The Water Cycle is a natural pattern in nature that we all learned about in school. The water evaporates from large bodies of water such as the Oceans and makes clouds which then might pass over land and when the right set of circumstances occur the clouds release the water as rain which falls and is absorbed by the Earth and gets purified as it passes through the ground. It wends its way to the streams and rivers and eventually back to the starting point. Without getting into the technical details, I’m trying to point out that a vital step is missing in the natural cycle, which is the purification step of water seeping through the ground.
Rain collection barrels are one way of reducing storm runoff, and thereby reducing the pollution of pet waste, fertilizer etc. which are being injected into our lakes, streams and oceans You see things like roof tops roads and parking lots keep the water from being absorbed by the earth and being purified and raising our water table. Water which should be being purified as it moves through the earth, is instead running along the surfaces of our streets and parking lots becoming more polluted instead of less polluted. As a result the Beaches often have polution warnings. Now this whole cycle could have been improved if Southern Californians used rain collection barrels and kept the water out of the streets and storm drains then when they watered their lawn the water would be absorbed by the earth and purified as is the natural cycle.
If you have ever waded out to your car on a rainy California winter morning you know that it does rain in Southern California. While it is true that it seldom rains in Southern California, during the rainy season it often pours. many feel it doesn’t rain enough in Southern California to warrant the use of a rain water barrel.
It is true that one rain barrel that would over flow during the rainy season and be used up quickly once the rain stopped might not make a huge difference. A set of interconnected rain collection barrels will multiply your water storage to the point where you might have water available year-round. Because of their building block shape, the Rainwater Hog has a big advantage over the traditional round Rainwater collection barrel, because they can be connected in series in and much more complex fashion, allowing you to string 10 or 20 together in a still somewhat aesthetic fashion.
You can calculate the amount of water that runs off your roof by the following formila .623 x your roofs sq ft x the inches of rain per year. So if your roof was 1000 sq ft and you lived in LA which gets between 10 and 30 inches per year. You could expect between 6230 gallons to 18,690 gallons to be running off your roof each year. Now you probably won’t find a rain barrel that big unless you collect it in your swimming pool or a Rainwater Pillow, but I think that the argument that it doesn’t rain enough in California is a flimsey argument you just have to get a bigger barrel.
