Short Stuff: Rain Barrels!

Harvesting rainwater has tons of upsides and not many downsides – you just need to take a few precautions first. Don’t miss this episode, which features some Josh Math™. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey everybody, it's Josh and Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave and this is Short Stuff. Rain barrels, let's go.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  That's right. I feel like it's 2010.

• 1:23Josh Clark?

  This is a bit of a throwback, but I know very little about rain barrels and I wanted to learn more and I wanted everybody else to learn more, whether they liked it or not.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  That's right. And my quick history of rain barrels is for a while we were collecting rainwater with the small barrels that you attach to your gutter at the edge of the house.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  That ended up a kind of a disaster. And then at one point we moved to a huge cistern system that collected rainwater from all of our gutters leading into this one cistern. And that ended up being a nightmare.

• 1:56Josh Clark?

  So you've abandoned the rain barrel thing, huh?

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're not doing rain barrels right now, but you know, we have some other sustainable systems in place that are too boring to talk about.

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  Well, maybe we will get to your flush toilets, just go water your vegetable.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  That's it, nailed it.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  Maybe when we get to the parts where you ran into trouble, you can mention it.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Nah, let's just get to it.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  All right. So we're talking about rain barrels, which are essentially just kind of what you said. They're cisterns or barrels or whatever that you catch rainwater in for use in ways that you might find productive.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, people have been doing this for a long time, like thousands and thousands of years. People have been collecting rainwater because obviously the cradle of civilization is in very arid climates. So rain was a very precious commodity back then and still.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of good reasons to use rainwater. For one, there it's it's definitely not pure, right? It might start out pretty pure, but on its way down, it picks up all sorts of particles and pollen and weird stuff. So it's not drinkable. You don't want to collect rainwater and then just start drinking it unless you're in some sort of weird survival situation somewhere.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13Josh Clark?

  This is not what you want to do at your house with running water. That's perfectly fine. Instead, it's really good for things like watering your garden, washing your car, that kind of stuff. The thing is, rainwater becomes even purer the longer the rain goes, right? So that stuff actually kind of gets scrubbed out of the air and later rain can actually be a little cleaner than the rain that comes down first. So rainwater is good is the point I'm trying to make.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was kind of a fun fact to learn. Did not know that. Rainwater is also usually pretty soft water, which is good for flowers and plants. And you know, tap water, you know, when Emily waters the indoor plant, she lets water sit out for like a couple of days because I think that eventually cleans up the water some. But she never takes tap water and directly waters like her house plants.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  No.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Because of, you know, things like chlorine and sanitation chemicals that are in that treated water.

• 4:08Josh Clark?

  We have one of those like one drop, I think, filters that's like 20 or 30 bucks for the whole system. And it, like, I've tested the water afterward and at the very least it gets pretty much all the chlorine out of tap water and it, we use those, they last forever. It's really great.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  And by tested, you mean you take a big swig and go, eh, tastes good?

• 4:28Josh Clark?

  Right. Yes, pretty much.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:32Josh Clark?

  So, one thing also I just want to say real quick about soft water is if you have treated soft water, that's not good for plants because they treat it with sodium. Rainwater is naturally soft, which means it doesn't contain a lot of hard minerals, a lot of them. It contains some.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Where do they have soft water on tour? Is that Madison, Wisconsin?

• 4:51Josh Clark?

  Yes, dude. My hair is still, has zero volume or body from our show in Madison in mid-April.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. My liver has extra volume and body because of my Madison experience.

• 5:04Josh Clark?

  It's pretty great.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  All right, so, collecting rainwater is also good for the local ecology because rainwater not being diverted into that muni system is gonna stay in the lakes and rivers, obviously, which is a great thing for the local wildlife.

• 5:20Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  And if you're harvesting rainwater, you're reducing the amount of the rainwater runoff, which can be bad, you know, that initial dirty rainwater can be like not great for lakes and streams.

• 5:32Josh Clark?

  No, because your sewers probably get directed, the rainstorm water drains get directed right to brooks, creeks, lakes even sometimes, if you can believe it. And that stuff picks up all the oil, all the antifreeze, all the tar, all that stuff, and just takes it to those streams and brooks and lakes with it. And also, excess fertilizer, we've talked about plenty of times, that gets taken to waterways and can Poor algae blooms that kill off everything

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Josh Clark?

  Other plant life to fish. So it's any, any rainwater that you're removing from the runoff is good. The thing is, is almost not even worth mentioning because you're removing such an insignificant amount that if everybody were doing this, it would have a huge impact, but you're not really going to. You can still feel good about it, though.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  That's right. I think we should take a break.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  And we're gonna come right back and hopefully talk very little about math if I can talk Josh into it right after this.

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• 7:53Speaker 03

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• 7:56Josh Clark?

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• 8:22Josh Clark?

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• 8:45Josh Clark?

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• 9:03Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, it's time for some math.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  I mean, please just say, and not work your way through this equation, right?

• 9:12Josh Clark?

  Well, let's find out how it goes. So essentially, you need to figure out how much water you're going to get, right?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Well, not really. I mean, you could just collect rainwater and use it, but sure.

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  Well, let's say you're a math buff, but you're terrible at math. And you're trying to figure out how much rainwater you're going to be able to collect. It's actually very simple. All you have to do is figure out the square footage of your roof, because your roof acts as the water catchment. And the water that hits your roof is going to flow eventually into your rain barrel, right? So let's say that you have a 1,200 square foot roof.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Don't do it.

• 9:49Josh Clark?

  Right? You will get 720 gallons of water from one inch of rainfall.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:55Josh Clark?

  Just from having that roof, right? And I arrived at that figure by taking the width of the roof, multiplying it by the length of the roof, and you got the square footage of the roof. And then multiplying that number, the square footage, by 0.6, which is the portion of the gallon that will be harvested from one inch of rainwater falling on one square foot of your roof. And like I said, if you have 1,200 square feet of roof, that's going to yield 720 gallons.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Man, you were right there. Sometimes I think you want people to click the stop button.

• 10:30Josh Clark?

  Or maybe just skip forward a little bit.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey, that's an option, by the way, everybody, if you're still with us. You don't have to stop listening. Just 15 seconds at a time, I think it is.

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  So I never make dry jokes to fool you, but I do, I did just do math to make you squirt, for sure.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I know. All right. So we need to talk roofs, though, because it depends on what kind of roof you have as to like how great that water's gonna be. If you've got like a brand new asbestos tarred asphalt shingled roof, you're probably not gonna like love that rainwater. It's not great. Treated cedar shakes are lovely, but they are treated with stuff that you're not gonna want, like arsenic, to keep them from rotting, obviously. Galvanized metal, some people say, like, that's probably the best thing, right? What do you say?

• 11:19Josh Clark?

  Probably not, because most metal roofs are treated with a protective coating that's made of PFAS. So that's gonna get right into your water, too. It turns out that slate tiles, terracotta tiles, or ceramic roof tiles are probably the best. They're going to contribute the least amount of extra stuff.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  So you gotta be rich.

• 11:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pretty much. It sounds like, unfortunately.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are all like super expensive roofs, right?

• 11:43Josh Clark?

  Yes. All three of them are, for sure. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is true. If you think about it, you don't want to use asphalt shingles to catch rain with unless Chuck, you have a good filter and they definitely make those kinds of things because there are some things you want to keep in mind when you're choosing a rain barrel, but one of them is you need a filter of some sort.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, some people can spend a ton of money on like a really nice filtration system and like a pump system. If you want to like turn this into like, you know, hoseable water or sprayable water.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Because otherwise, you know, you got to figure that out too, because you got a lot of water and man, you know, that rain comes down quickly and those things overflow very fast and fill up very quickly.

• 12:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so there's actually a overflow mechanism and I'm sure there's really elaborate ones, but at the very least, you want one that goes from pretty much the top of the rain barrel into a downspout so that when that rain barrel fills up, it's going to overflow into a downspout where it's supposed to go rather than through the top of the rain barrel and right down into your foundation. You don't want that. So that's something that you definitely want to have in any rain barrel setup or else you're going to be crying all the way to Ramjack, you know?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  So what the hell is Ramjack?

• 13:00Josh Clark?

  It's a foundation repair company.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Okay. Uh, the other thing you're going to want is a good lid for that thing. It's not just like an open system. If you've never seen a rain barrel, they have lids because it keeps all the debris out and the bugs out. Uh, you don't want like a small child crawling into a rain barrel because that could be very sad.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Uh, obviously. Um, and you want to keep sunlight out, uh, because I think you talked about the algae growth in act one, uh, and also mosquitoes. You don't want mosquitoes laying their larvae in there.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  No, you should go to jail if you're breeding mosquitoes, you know?

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have, I love it because one of our fence walls is completely over the years now, ivy, like beautiful Wrigley Field ivy.

• 13:43Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  And it looks so cool, but it is a mosquito nightmare and we're going to have to get rid of it.

• 13:50Josh Clark?

  Well, I'm sorry that your ivy is going to have to go away, but I don't blame you one bit. If it were a mosquito factory, if I had a mosquito factory, I'd have to deal with that too.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really bad. So, uh, what else? Oh yeah, I did talk about, um, filters. They make UV lights that can kill bacteria.

• 14:05Josh Clark?

  What about the bacteria though?

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Very nice. Touche. Touche, as they say.

• 14:12Josh Clark?

  Thanks. That's French for touch.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Uh, what else? You don't want to drink this water. I hope we've made that clear. But, you know, if you can find a way to pump it, you could wash your car with it.

• 14:23Josh Clark?

  You could. Uh, you can also use it to grow plants, obviously, flowers, that kind of thing. If you use it in a vegetable garden or a fruit garden, you do not want to use it within probably a week or so. I would might even give myself a wider berth than that of harvesting because those things are going to suck it like any pollutant in that's in that rainwater and you're going to put it right into your body. You certainly don't want to rinse the vegetables off with that. You want to rinse it off with, um, you want to basically put your vegetables in a bucket of just pure bleach for several days before you get them out and eat them.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  No, Josh is kidding, everybody. Don't get us canceled and sued. That is not true. That is not true.

• 15:07Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Uh, what else here? I can't believe we've been talking about this for almost 14 minutes. You gotta clean that filter regularly. You have to inspect that thing. Got to keep that lid tight. Watch out for leaks. Keep those gutters clean. I just got mine cleaned.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  What if you live in a freezing type area?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that can crack that rain barrel. You gotta check it out on the reg.

• 15:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Plus also you need to winterize it, which is basically unhooking it from everything and, um, like emptying it. Sorry. You're not confused.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, putting it in your bedroom.

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Uh, I feel like I wasn't a hundred percent clear on the math and it might help for me to go over it one more time.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  I think we totally should. I'll see you next week.

• 15:49Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, short stuff is that.

• 15:54Speaker 06

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