On 7 August Brian Falkner from Rain Harvesting Products Ltd came down to the garden to connect up our barrels at a workshop. This was going to be held during No.8 Wire Week on 24 July, but the wild weather set things back. Anyway, the set-up was unusual as the Arts Society committee had asked us to move the barrels and their stand away from the wall, which had a number of implications.
One – the pipe from the diverter had to bridge the gap without being unsightly and a target for vandals. We solved this by putting it underground – it goes down and then up.
Two – the stand needed to be dug into the ground to give it stability, making it a lot lower than we intended. But the lower it is, the less water pressure is available. The solution was to boost the barrels up on plastic pallets, kindly provided by Brian.
Three – the barrels were meant to be strapped to the wall for safety, and apart from it could easily tip off of the stand, especially as they were now up on pallets. The fix for this was the surrounding ‘fence’ we built around the barrels last year and then finally the metal strap I put on to secure the barrels to it. Convoluted, but thankfully, sorted.
There are five 120 litre barrels (kindly provided by Group member Michael), all linked together at the bottom with regular hosepipe ‘splitter’ fittings. If the taps are open, they all fill and empty equally. This arrangement also gives us a tap at each end of the stand. Next trick will be to rig up connections across to drip-hoses in the garden beds to make watering hassle-free.
Many thanks to Brian for his help and expert advice. If you need help with this sort of thing, he’s the man to call!
Matai Community Garden Group 