| Rain Barrel to Toilet Installation |
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| A Practical How-To Guide |
| Page 3 |
| Your first task will be to find a functional and asthetic place to place your rain barrel. The higher the rain barrel can be placed above the toilet, the better the performance due to the higher pressure. For multi-story houses, one floor height (approx 8 feet), like in my installation, will work well. For single-story homes, I suspect that placing 3 to 4 feet of blocks or a small platform under your barrel will provide enough pressure. **Caution: Water is heavy! (~8 pounds per gallon). Make sure your structure is adequate enough to support your rain barrel. A normal deck *should* be fine to support up to 100 gallons (800 pounds) but be careful! |
| Locating Your Barrel |
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| Figure 1. Overall Installation |
| Figure 1 below shows how I set up my system. It involved 20 feet of supply line since the barrel was laterally offset from the toilet. You can place your barrel anywhere in relation to the toilet as long as you have adequate height above it. |
| My rainwater supply line is not directly connected to the toilet. Instead, it is connected to a splitter valve (green dot in figure above behind toilet). This allows easy switching between rainwater (black line) and the normal potable water supply (short red line). We'll discuss more about this valve shortly. |
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| Water barrels don't have to be an eyesore. |
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