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Short Stuff: Rain Barrels! · Stuff You Should Know

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck and Jerry sitting in
0:07
Speaker 1: for Dave. And this is short stuff rain barrels. Let's go.
0:11
Speaker 2: That's right. I feel like it's twenty ten.
0:14
Speaker 1: This is a bit of a throwback. But I know
0:17
Speaker 1: very little about rain barrels, and I wanted to learn more,
0:20
Speaker 1: and I wanted everybody else to learn more, whether they
0:23
Speaker 1: liked it or not.
0:24
Speaker 2: That's right. And my quick history of rain barrels is, for.
0:27
Speaker 3: A while we were collecting rainwater with the small barrels
0:30
Speaker 3: that you attached to your gutter at the edge of
0:31
Speaker 3: the house. That ended up kind of a disaster. And
0:35
Speaker 3: then at one point we moved to a huge cistern
0:39
Speaker 3: system that collected rainwater from all of our gutters leading
0:43
Speaker 3: into this one cistern, and that ended up being a nightmare.
0:47
Speaker 1: So you've abandoned the rain barrel thing. Huh.
0:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not doing rain barrels right now.
0:52
Speaker 3: But you know we have some other sustainable systems in
0:55
Speaker 3: place that are too boring to talk about.
0:57
Speaker 1: Well, maybe we will get to your toilets, just go
1:01
Speaker 1: water your vegetable paths.
1:03
Speaker 2: That's it, nailed it.
1:04
Speaker 1: Maybe when we get to the parts where you ran
1:07
Speaker 1: into trouble. You can mention it. Nah, let's just get
1:11
Speaker 1: to it all right. So we're talking about rain barrels,
1:13
Speaker 1: which are essentially just kind of what you said. They're
1:16
Speaker 1: cisterns or barrels or whatever that you catch rain water
1:20
Speaker 1: in for use in ways that you might find product.
1:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, people have been doing this for a long time,
1:27
Speaker 3: like thousands and thousands of years. People have been collecting
1:30
Speaker 3: rainwater because obviously the cradle of civilization is in very
1:35
Speaker 3: arid climate, so rain was very precious commodity back then.
1:39
Speaker 1: And still yes, yeah, there's a lot of good reasons
1:42
Speaker 1: to use rain water. For one, it's definitely not pure, right.
1:49
Speaker 1: It might start out pretty pure, but on its way
1:52
Speaker 1: down it picks up all sorts of particles and pollen
1:55
Speaker 1: and weird stuff, so it's not drinkable. You don't want
1:58
Speaker 1: to collect rain water and then just drinking it unless
2:00
Speaker 1: you're in some sort of weird survival situation somewhere. Yeah,
2:04
Speaker 1: this is not what you want to do at your
2:06
Speaker 1: house with running water. That's perfectly fine. Instead, it's really
2:10
Speaker 1: good for things like water in your garden, washing your car,
2:13
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. The thing is rainwater becomes even
2:17
Speaker 1: purer the longer the rain goes, right, so that stuff
2:21
Speaker 1: actually kind of gets scrubbed out of the air, and
2:23
Speaker 1: later rain can actually be a little cleaner than the
2:26
Speaker 1: rain that comes down first. So rainwater is good, is
2:29
Speaker 1: the point I'm trying to make.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was kind of a fun fact to learn.
2:33
Speaker 3: Did not know that rainwater is also usually pretty soft water,
2:36
Speaker 3: which is good for flowers and plants, and you know
2:40
Speaker 3: tap water. You know, when Emily water is the endoor plant,
2:42
Speaker 3: she lets water sit out for like a couple of
2:46
Speaker 3: days because I think that eventually cleans up the water some.
2:50
Speaker 3: But she never takes tap water and directly waters like
2:53
Speaker 3: her houseplants, because of you know, things like chlorine and
2:57
Speaker 3: sanitation chemicals that are in that treated water.
3:00
Speaker 1: One of those like one drop I think filters that's
3:03
Speaker 1: like twenty or thirty bucks for the whole system, and
3:07
Speaker 1: it like I've tested the water afterward, and at the
3:10
Speaker 1: very least it gets pretty much all the chlorine out
3:12
Speaker 1: of tap water, and we use those They last forever.
3:15
Speaker 1: It's really great.
3:16
Speaker 3: And by tested, you mean you take a big swig
3:18
Speaker 3: and go it tastes.
3:19
Speaker 1: Good, right, yes, pretty much. Yeah, So one thing also,
3:25
Speaker 1: I just want to say real quick about soft water
3:28
Speaker 1: is if you have treated soft water, that's not good
3:31
Speaker 1: for plants because they treat it with sodium. Rain Water
3:34
Speaker 1: is naturally soft, which means it doesn't contain a lot
3:37
Speaker 1: of hard minerals a lot of them. It contains some where.
3:40
Speaker 2: Did they have soft water on tour? Is that Madison, Wisconsin?
3:43
Speaker 1: Yes, dude, my hair is still has zero volume or
3:47
Speaker 1: body from our show in Madison in mid April.
3:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, my liver has extra volume and body because of
3:54
Speaker 3: my Madison experience.
3:55
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, all right.
3:58
Speaker 3: So collecting rain water is also good for the local
4:01
Speaker 3: ecology because rainwater not being diverted into that muni system
4:07
Speaker 3: is gonna stay in the lakes and rivers obviously, which
4:10
Speaker 3: is a great thing for the local wildlife for sure.
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Speaker 3: And if you're harvesting rainwater, you're reducing the amount of
4:16
Speaker 3: the rainwater runoff, which can be bad. You know, that
4:20
Speaker 3: initial dirty rainwater, It could be like not great for
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Speaker 3: lakes and streams.
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Speaker 1: No, because your sewers probably get directed the rainstorm water
4:28
Speaker 1: drains get directed right to brooks creeks lakes even sometimes
4:32
Speaker 1: if you can believe it, and that stuff picks up
4:36
Speaker 1: all the oil, all the anti freeze, all the tar,
4:39
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and just takes it to those streams
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Speaker 1: and brooks and lakes with it. And also excess fertilizer
4:45
Speaker 1: we've talked about plenty of times that gets taken to
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Speaker 1: waterways and can support algae blooms that kill off everything
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Speaker 1: from other plant life to fish. So it's any rainwater
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Speaker 1: that you're removing from the runoff is good. The thing
5:00
Speaker 1: is is almost not even worth mentioning because you're removing
5:03
Speaker 1: such an insignificant amount that if everybody were doing this
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Speaker 1: it would have a huge impact. But you're not really
5:09
Speaker 1: going to You can still feel good about it, though.
5:12
Speaker 2: That's right.
5:13
Speaker 3: I think we should take a break, okay, and we're
5:15
Speaker 3: gonna come right back and hopefully talk very little about
5:19
Speaker 3: math if I can talk Josh into it right after.
5:21
Speaker 2: This sv.
5:47
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, it's time for some math.
5:51
Speaker 2: I mean, please just say and not work your way
5:54
Speaker 2: through this equation.
5:55
Speaker 1: Right, Well, let's find out how it goes. So essentially,
5:59
Speaker 1: you need to figure out how much water you're going
6:02
Speaker 1: to get, right.
6:04
Speaker 2: Well, not really, I mean you could just collect rainwater
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Speaker 2: and use it.
6:07
Speaker 1: But sure, Well, let's say you're a math buff But
6:11
Speaker 1: you're terrible at math, and you're trying to figure out
6:14
Speaker 1: how much rainwater you're going to be able to collect.
6:16
Speaker 1: It's actually very simple. All you have to do is
6:18
Speaker 1: figure out the square footage of your roof, because your
6:20
Speaker 1: roof actss the water catchment, and the water that hits
6:24
Speaker 1: your roof is going to flow eventually into your rain barrel. Right,
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Speaker 1: So let's say that you have a twelve hundred square
6:31
Speaker 1: foot roof, right, you will get seven hundred and twenty
6:36
Speaker 1: gallons of water from one inch of rainfall, oh, just
6:40
Speaker 1: from having that roof. Right. And I arrived at that
6:43
Speaker 1: figure by taking the width of the roof, multiplying it
6:48
Speaker 1: by the length of the roof, and you got the
6:49
Speaker 1: square footage of the roof, and then multiplying that number
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Speaker 1: the square footage by point six, which is the portion
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Speaker 1: of the gallon that will be harvested from one inch
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Speaker 1: of rainwater falling on one square foot of your roof.
7:02
Speaker 1: And like I said, if you have twelve hundred square
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Speaker 1: feet of roof, that's going to yield seven hundred and
7:07
Speaker 1: twenty gallons.
7:09
Speaker 2: Man, you were right there.
7:11
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think you want people to click the stop button.
7:15
Speaker 1: Or maybe just skip forward a little bit.
7:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, that's an option.
7:18
Speaker 3: By the way, everybody, if you're still with us, you
7:20
Speaker 3: don't have to stop listening, just fifteen seconds at a time.
7:23
Speaker 2: I think it is so.
7:24
Speaker 1: I never make dry jokes to fool you, but I do.
7:28
Speaker 1: I did just do math to make you scortin for sure.
7:31
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, all right.
7:34
Speaker 3: So we need to talk roofs though, because it depends
7:36
Speaker 3: on what kind of roof you have as to like
7:37
Speaker 3: how great that water is going to be.
7:40
Speaker 2: If you've got like a brand.
7:41
Speaker 3: New asbestos tard asphalt shingled roof, you're probably not going
7:46
Speaker 3: to like love that rain water.
7:47
Speaker 2: It's not great treated cedar shakes or lovely.
7:51
Speaker 3: But they are treated with stuff that you're not gonna want,
7:54
Speaker 3: like arsenick to keep them from riding. Obviously galvanized metal.
7:59
Speaker 3: Some people say, like, that's probably the best thing, right,
8:01
Speaker 3: What do you say.
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Speaker 1: Probably not, because most metal roofs are treated with a
8:06
Speaker 1: protective coating that's made of peafasts, so that's going to
8:10
Speaker 1: get right into your water too. It turns out that
8:13
Speaker 1: slate tiles, terra cotta tiles, or ceramic roof tiles are
8:17
Speaker 1: probably the best they're going to contribute the least amount
8:20
Speaker 1: of extra stuff when you gotta be rich. Yeah, pretty much,
8:24
Speaker 1: it sounds like.
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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, yeah, those are all like super expensive roofs, right, Yes.
8:29
Speaker 1: All three of them are, for sure. So yeah, yeah,
8:32
Speaker 1: I mean it is true if you think about it,
8:34
Speaker 1: you don't want to use asphalt shingles to catch rain
8:37
Speaker 1: with unless chuck you have a good filter, and they
8:40
Speaker 1: definitely make those kinds of things, because there are some
8:43
Speaker 1: things you want to keep in mind when you're choosing
8:45
Speaker 1: a rain barrel, but one of them is you need
8:47
Speaker 1: a filter of some sort.
8:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:50
Speaker 3: So, I mean some people can spend a ton of
8:52
Speaker 3: money on like a really nice filtration system and like
8:54
Speaker 3: a pump system if you want to like turn this
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Speaker 3: into like you know, hosable water. Yeah, because otherwise, you know,
9:02
Speaker 3: you got to figure that out too, because you got
9:04
Speaker 3: a lot of water and men, you know that rain
9:06
Speaker 3: comes down quickly and those things overflow very fast and
9:09
Speaker 3: fill up very quickly.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's actually an overflow mechanism, and I'm sure
9:14
Speaker 1: there's really elaborate ones, but at the very least you
9:17
Speaker 1: want one that goes from pretty much the top of
9:20
Speaker 1: the rain barrel into a down spout, so that when
9:23
Speaker 1: that rain barrel fills up, it's going to overflow into
9:26
Speaker 1: a down spout where it's supposed to go, rather than
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Speaker 1: through the top of the rain barrel and right down
9:30
Speaker 1: into your foundation. You don't want that. So that's something
9:33
Speaker 1: that you definitely want to have in any rain barrel
9:35
Speaker 1: set up, or else you're going to be crying all
9:37
Speaker 1: the way to ram Jack, you know.
9:42
Speaker 2: So that is ram Jack.
9:44
Speaker 1: It's a foundation repair company.
9:46
Speaker 2: Okay.
9:48
Speaker 3: The other thing you're gonna want is a good lid
9:50
Speaker 3: for that thing. It's not just like an open system.
9:52
Speaker 3: If you've never seen a rain barrel, they have lids
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Speaker 3: because it keeps all the debris out and the bugs out.
9:57
Speaker 3: You don't want like a small child crawling into a
9:59
Speaker 3: rain barrel because that could be very sad. Yeah, obviously,
10:03
Speaker 3: and you want to keep some light out because I
10:06
Speaker 3: think you talked about the algae growth in Act one,
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Speaker 3: and also mosquitos. You don't want mosquitos laying their larvae
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Speaker 3: in there.
10:13
Speaker 1: No, you should go to jail if you're breeding mosquitoes.
10:16
Speaker 3: You know.
10:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have.
10:19
Speaker 3: I'd love it because one of our fence walls is
10:24
Speaker 3: completely over the years now. Ivy like beautiful Wrigley Field
10:27
Speaker 3: ivy and it looks so cool, but it is a
10:30
Speaker 3: mosquito nightmare and we're gonna have to get rid of it.
10:35
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry that your ivy's gonna have to go away,
10:37
Speaker 1: but I don't blame you one bit. If it were
10:38
Speaker 1: a mosquito factory, a mosquito factory, I'd have to deal
10:41
Speaker 1: with that too.
10:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really bad. So what else?
10:45
Speaker 1: Oh?
10:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did talk about filters. They make UV lights
10:48
Speaker 3: that can kill bacteria.
10:50
Speaker 1: What about the bacteria? Though?
10:55
Speaker 2: Very nice touche as they say.
10:57
Speaker 1: Thanks, that's French for touch.
11:00
Speaker 2: What else?
11:01
Speaker 3: You don't want to drink this water? I hope we've
11:02
Speaker 3: made that clear. But you know, if you can find
11:06
Speaker 3: a way to pump it, you could wash your car
11:07
Speaker 3: with it.
11:08
Speaker 1: You could. You can also use it to grow plants, obviously, flowers,
11:12
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. If you use it in a
11:14
Speaker 1: vegetable garden or fruit garden, you do not want to
11:19
Speaker 1: use it within probably a week or so. I might
11:22
Speaker 1: even give myself a wider berth than that of harvesting,
11:26
Speaker 1: because those things are gonna suck it like any pollutant
11:29
Speaker 1: in that's in that rainwater and you're gonna put it
11:31
Speaker 1: right into your body. You certainly don't want to rinse
11:34
Speaker 1: the vegetables off with that. You want to rinse it
11:37
Speaker 1: off with You want to basically put your vegetables in
11:40
Speaker 1: a bucket of just pure bleach for several days before
11:44
Speaker 1: you get them out and eat them.
11:45
Speaker 3: No, Josh is kidding. Everybody, don't get us canceled ensued.
11:49
Speaker 3: That is not true. That is not true.
11:51
Speaker 2: Thanks, what else here? I can't believe we've been talking
11:55
Speaker 2: about this for almost fourteen minutes. You got to clean
11:57
Speaker 2: that filter regularly.
11:59
Speaker 3: You have to inspect that thing, got to keep that
12:01
Speaker 3: lid tight, watch out for leaks, keep those gutters clean.
12:05
Speaker 2: I just got mind cleaned.
12:06
Speaker 1: What if you live in a freezing type area?
12:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that can crack that rain barrel. You
12:11
Speaker 3: gotta check it out on the rig.
12:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Plus also you need to winnorize it, which is
12:17
Speaker 1: basically unhooking it from everything and like emptying it. Sorry,
12:22
Speaker 1: you're not gonna.
12:22
Speaker 2: Get and putting it in your bedroom exactly.
12:26
Speaker 1: I feel like I wasn't one hundred percent clear on
12:29
Speaker 1: the math, and it might help for me to go
12:30
Speaker 1: over it one more time.
12:31
Speaker 2: I think we totally should I'll see it next week.
12:34
Speaker 1: Okay, well short stuff is that.
12:38
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12:41
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