Using a hose with a rain barrel--

[big brown horse]

Does anyone here have a hose attached to their rain barrel? I am having an issue with getting water out of my hose. Any tips?

I tried to manually syphon already and just got a few drops.

This is a 85 gallon rain barrel mounted about 1 foot off the ground. Hose is 50 feet long.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ksalvagno]

Where on the barrel is the hose attached?

 

[miss_thenorth]

Yes, I have a hose attached to m y rain barrel , altoughit is probably frozen right now. My hose is atached to the bottom, gravity fed and controlled by a spigot. If you are trying to siphon, first thing to check is to make sure your hose does not have a blockage. Nexthow are you trying to get the siphon going? Sucking (gross I know, but as long as the end that is NOT in the water is lower thatn the end that IS in the water, it should be able to get going. Just make sure thta after you suck, or whatever, that pressure is not lost until the outside end of the hose is lower than the inside end. Make sense?

 

[Boogity]

Does anyone here have a hose attached to their rain barrel? I am having an issue with getting water out of my hose. Any tips?

I tried to manually syphon already and just got a few drops.

This is a 85 gallon rain barrel mounted about 1 foot off the ground. Hose is 50 feet long.

Thanks in advance!

You're not too clear on how you are trying to get the water to flow. If you are trying to siphon the water up and over the top edge of the drum maybe you have some plug or something in the hose. Suck on the hose until you have a mouth full of water and you're sure the hose is completely full of water. If you allow the water to rush back to the barrel before you get the discharge end of the hose below the water in the barrel you will immediately loose the siphon effect and you will have to start over.

Most rain barrel arrangements have the hose or pipe connection near the bottom of the barrel to allow gravity to make the water flow. It is a good idea to have the drain connection a few inches above the bottom of the barrel to minimize the chances of debris in the bottom of the drum clogging the pipe connection.

 

[SKR8PN]

My rain barrel is a 450 gallon water tank that I set up on 3 layers of 6x6. That puts the outlet of the tank about 18 inches up. I can get an excellent flow with just a 5/8 garden hose. Not enough to run a sprinkler, but enough to run 50 ft of hose out and water the garden or fill a sprinkling can.

 

[big brown horse]

I made it myself with a clean horse trough. I plan on making a frame top with handles for the screen, but that's a later project, right now the screen is just duct taped in place.

It rained (for the first time since I put it together) last night and the whole thing is almost full. As you can see, I added a spigot with a washer near the bottom and attached a brand new (un-clogged) hose.

The water is strictly for livestock, mainly horses--that is my new mini barn behind it by the way.

I can't seem to get the hose to do more than trickel out the rain water and if I try to bring it up to a horse bucket's height, it stops all together.

 

[big brown horse]

Oh and yes when I said "manually syphoning" the hose, I used my mouth...if it didn't kill me when I was a kid, I can't imagine it killing me now. (Plus it was brand new.)

 

[patandchickens]

You are not going to get a whole lot of water pressure with so little head on the water *and* a very long hose. Any chance of shortening the hose?

Also you might try a larger diameter hose. 3/8", 1/2" and 3/4" might not *seem* that different, but you get a LOT more flow of water each time you size up to the next size.

Final thought, what does it do when you remove the hose and just run water directly out the valve (spigot), as it is not totally impossible for the valve to be messed up or clogged.

Pat

 

[TanksHill]

That looks like a ball valve. Are you opening it up all the way? OR just a bit?

Cool set up for water conservation. I still have to work on that project.

 

[freemotion]

It looks to low to me. Is it working better now that it is full? You may need to empty it and raise it up quite a bit more. Remember that town water tanks are VERY high to get more water pressure without a pump.