Making an automatic waterer out of a 55 gallon rain barrel?

[SophieLain127]

Well I figure if I just let it drip into a 2 or 5 gallon bucket it will be easy to move inside at night so my girls have some water then I can just put it back out in the morning when they are outside.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

We made hog drinkers from 55 gallon drums. The drinker was based on vaccuum and utilized the barrel laying on a 4x4 frame with the large bung at the top and the small bung with steel pipe an elbow at the bottom. The elbow drained into a bowl that was attached to the frame. The barrel is filled from the top bung with the elbow plugged. When the top bung is sealed the water will fill the bowl until a vacuum is formed and will only allow water to flow when enough is removed to allow some air to enter.

Jim

 

[Davaroo]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

We made hog drinkers from 55 gallon drums. The drinker was based on vaccuum and utilized the barrel laying on a 4x4 frame with the large bung at the top and the small bung with steel pipe an elbow at the bottom. The elbow drained into a bowl that was attached to the frame. The barrel is filled from the top bung with the elbow plugged. When the top bung is sealed the water will fill the bowl until a vacuum is formed and will only allow water to flow when enough is removed to allow some air to enter.

Jim

Sublime and effective. Love it!​

 

[peepdaddy]

Quote:
BTW I love your avatar. Few people are likely to get the subtlety of that.

Sounds like you are working through it pretty well. Way to go!

Roy Eames, the famous American designer and inventer, once directed one of his protegees to figure out a certain problem.
When given the task, the fellow went across town to see how someone eles had done a similar thing.

When he found out about the source of the solution, Mr. Eames rejected it. He told the guy, "(sic)...I don't want to know how someone else did this or that, so we can copy their idea. What is wanted is something new and unique."

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How long are you planning to keep the water in the barrel? Water wont keep indefinitely, free from microbes and other "nasties."
At some point, it goes "bad."
I guess it depends on how often it rains and gets refreshed, right?

I suppose it's always nice to have new and unique solutions but it can save a lot of time, effort, money and failures if one copies a tried and true solution. If I had to reinvent everything I use everyday I'd never get things done!

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Of course you are right, one need not re-invent the wheel at every turn. There is normally some balance struck between the tried and true, and coming up with something new. I would expect no one to accept what I said as entirely literal, all the time.

But Mr. Eames was a geunine innovator and he rarely compromised. His point is no less valid:

Some simple applications of what we already know or have at hand, an idea and a smidgen of common sense can often give both the right answer and - with luck - one that is unique.

Fortunes have been made on no more than that, as Roy Eames might attest were he alive today.

Google him; fascinating character.