Dave Lawson More Details

When I was working at Komex in the early 90's we had to go out to different job sites and do "environmental" clean ups. One of the places was the CPR Ogden railway car shops. Some of the contaminated items they were disposing of were 45 gallon drums that had been used for detergent. I took 3 of those home thinking they'd be the least dangerous.

I torched the bottoms out of two of them and welded them end to end on top of the one that still had a bottom. Since I gas welded them with the acetylene torch it was a shock that there were only a couple of little pin holes. With the leaks fixed I welded a 3 inch overflow pipe at the top and a 1/2 inch pipe nipple into the bottom, screwed on a valve for the garden hose, slapped on a coat of white oil-based paint and stood the thing up under the garage eaves trough discharge. A lid with a 6 inch hole cut to line up with the downspout finished the installation.

The rain barrel worked perfectly for about 10 years. It would take about 1/2 an hour of moderate rain on the 650 square foot half of the garage roof to provide the 135 gallons of water. The 9 foot high tank never leaked a drop and supplied enough head pressure for sprinklers but not the recycled rubber soaker hoses.

It was mid October about five years ago and the local gardening guru's on the radio announced there would be no cold weather until Christmas. Naturally it was 37 below zero three days later and the rain barrel was full to the brim hooked up to a recycled rubber soaker hose. The 1350 lbs of ice expanded about 18 inches, bulging the bottom off and lifting the roof of the garage two inches above the top of the wall. It was May before the ice cylinder was finally gone. Nothing I tried would even begin to melt it. Since then the big tank has stood there empty.

When my brother was visiting from Victoria a couple of months ago we got the thing down and hammered the bottom back on. It came out pretty good but would never hold water without being welded. Some time this summer I'll try to get my other brother to help me load it on to the old trailer, the one with the '28 Chev axle, so I can haul it to our Dad's house where the mig welder is. Hopefully the big rain barrel will be filled again soon.