Put a rain barrel under my gutter in March, and the math on my water bill did not match what the salesman promised

Evan Palmer · 2026-09-29T21:00:05.996156+00:00

I hooked a 55 gallon barrel to my downspout back in March expecting to cut my outdoor water use by half, since the guy at the hardware store said most folks save 1,200 gallons a season. By July I had collected maybe 300 gallons total, because we had a dry spring here in Columbus and the barrel sat empty for weeks at a time. So now I am stuck between two views: one side says rain barrels are a waste of money for anyone outside the Pacific Northwest, and the other says I just sized mine wrong and should chain three together. What did your actual collected volume look like compared to what you were told, and did you ever find a setup that paid for itself?

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Put a rain barrel under my gutter in March, and the math on my water bill did not match what the salesman promised | Climate Action - Pinecone Attack