The History of the Rainwater Barrel
Man has been using techniques for saving water from rain fall for future use for thousands of years. It is possible that early caveman found ways to save rainwater for use at a later time. Now the techniques for doing this have varied greatly over the years. Barrels have also been around for thousands of years, because up until the 1900s barrels were the best way to ship things, and though they have since been replaced by cardboard boxes as the preferred method of shipping, the fact that they have been around that long has made them a good method for collecting rainwater. If you watch old Westerns you will frequently see rainwater barrels in the background. In desert areas such as those found in the old West, saving rainwater for future use was a necessity, not a luxury.
Now the earliest “rainwater barrels” were probably made of clay, but when we think of a rainwater barrel most of us think of a wooden barrel. These days however most water barrels are made of plastic. Now the collection of rainwater or rainwater harvesting as it is called, is vital in remote desert climates, but it also would benefit places such as Southern California where I happen to live.
We are having a water shortage. Now to some of us that seems strange because we can still remember the feeling of having too much rain during the winter months. Where did the water go? Well the fact is it went down a storm drains and back out to the ocean, you might notice there is no water shortage in the ocean. So the problem is a lot of rain fell but very little of it stayed anywhere near where it fell.
In this blog we are going to examine various methods of rainwater harvesting that have been used in the past, are being used now, and might be being used in the future. We will be looking at some unusual variations of the rainwater barrel, such as, the Rainwater Hog.
