Rain Barrel Installation: A Lesson In Geometry

Byamericorpsncccteammember

Tip the Block preparation continues! This past Tuesday, Melissa, Jessica, Danielle, and I (Camille) drove down Jeannette Street to meet Hilairie Schackai, a TogetherGreen Fellow and Director of Community Initiatives at Longue Vue House and Gardens, to install our very first rain barrels! The installation was preparation for the 24 rain barrels we’ll be installing for New Orleans residents during the actual Tip the Block event this July. Hilairie gave us a brief lesson in rain barrel installation in the backyard  before we started. Conceptually, rain barrels are a pretty simple. You make sure the ground  where you’ll place the barrel is level, build the platform for the barrel, put the barrel on top, and then angle the down spout of the gutter into the rain barrel so all the water from the roof goes into the barrel.The house we were at didn’t have gutters so we stopped before we started for Andi (the Executive Director of Green Light) to stop by and give us a quick course in gutter installation. It was very cool to see Andi using his skills from his past life as Handy Andi. After that, we actually got started. Melissa was up the ladder in a flash while the rest of us passed up tools or held the ladder steady while praying she didn’t fall. Half of the yard was shaded by a tall, lush tree where cool green light filtered through the leaves. Our half of the yard was shade-less, and at times, the sun heated up the gutter so much that it burned our hands to hold on to it. Eventually, we got the gutter up and made our rain barrel platform. We were all very proud of ourselves until we realized the down spout of our newly installed gutter didn’t actually angle into the rain barrel. It took dusting off our rusty geometry skills, a pile of screws, and a bunch of sealant, but in the end, we fixed the angle. Once we finished with the first house (including filling a bucket with water to test the gutter/rain barrel system), we did it all again at the next house. It was an awesome way to spend the afternoon.