# Water Barrel Tips



## Taboo_oh (Jan 2, 2012)

Time to get the water barrels out and ready for this years rainfalls for your garden, washing, cooking and other tasks. Be sure to clean out any debris from last year and make sure you have a screen on the top to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in the water. You need to take extra precaution when collecting the water if your using it for cooking or drinking to know that the rain runoff from the roof could have anything from bird droppings to asphalt toxins coming into the barrels. As always, be safe with rain runoff water, and always boil it regardless of where it came from.


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## RuDown (Apr 16, 2012)

So how would you know if it had toxins in it? How could you eliminate these toxins? Will boiling cure this problem also? I only ask because I just bought some of the blue food grade barrels for that simple purpose. Now I'm curious why people would even water their garden with this water because the toxins would transfer to the veggies wouldn't they? Flowers are one thing but veggies is another.


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## Schutzengel (Apr 23, 2012)

rain runoff should always be treated as grey water... always treated prior to human consumption, any toxins could be boiled out using vapor distillation, just be sure to add calcium and magnesium to the distilled water to prevent it from leaching those minerals out of your system. either by adding a few water soluable multivitamins to the bottom of your collection vessel. the ideal uses for rain water are sanitation and gardens and for the most part it can be added directly ... if you are concerned allow the barrel to sit for a day or two to allow suspended sediments etc to settle out.


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## HuntingHawk (Dec 16, 2012)

Every drum/barrel I have purchased still had the original label on the shipping contents on it.


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