It took me about one week to realize that I could build my own rain barrel for about $35 and not have to pay for shipping. I started by searching online for articles and found some great video tutorials on YouTube. After that, I made a shopping list, got project approval from my wife and then carved out about 4 hours over the weekend to build my rain barrel.

Step 1: Design Your System

Plan out what you need and how you want to do this project before going to the hardware store. You need a method for gathering rainwater which is typically your roof’s rain gutter. The barrel will need to be located directly next to the down spout so check out the area to make sure you have room. Also make sure that you can live with the big barrel outside your house. In our case, it is behind our house in an out of the way corner so I had no reservations about putting it there. Plan out your system and then make a list.

I made a shopping list of everything I needed:

1. Large water-tight garbage can (35 to 45 gallons)
2. Water Faucet
3. Silicon Adhesive / Sealant
4. Flexible Water Spout Diverter
5. Small Garden Hose (15′ so I can fill my watering can, you may need longer)
6. 2″ PVC Threaded Elbow with Coupler
7. 2′ PVC Pipe (2″ Width)

Things I already had:

1. Utility Knife
2. Hack Saw
3. Drill
4. 1 1/4″ Hole Cutting Drill Bit
5. Magic Marker
6. A few Cinder Blocks

My total cost was about $35. I picked up everything I needed at Lowes. These items can be purchased at just about any hardware store.

Step 2: Prepare Your Work Space

Take time to clear all other items from around the down spout and get your tools together along with the barrel (garbage can, pickle barrel, whiskey barrel, whatever…). You will be cutting the down spout to your rain gutter as well as the barrel so have a magic marker and and organized work space. Plan and mark everything carefully. It’s a simple project but you will be cutting things so if you make a mistake, you probably have to replace the barrel or part of your rain gutter.

Step 3: Installing the Faucet (Spigot)

I started by marking a spot to install the water faucet / spigot at the bottom of the barrel. I measured about 3″ from the bottom to center the 1 1/4″ hole cutter drill bit and marked it. Then I used the drill and hole cutter bit to cut a 1 1/4″ hole in the side of the barrel. This provides a perfect fit that you can thread the faucet into. I put silicon sealant on the the threads first before rotating the faucet in. I tightened up a plastic nut that came with the faucet, on the inside of the barrel until it was snug then put a bead of silicon sealant on the inside and outside of the faucet connection.

Step 4: Installing the Overflow Pipe

Mark a 2″ circle towards the top of your barrel.  The top of the circle should be about 2″ or 3″ beneath the top of your barrel.  Position it towards the back of the barrel in relation to where you faucet is located.  Make the circle marking by tracing around the 2″ PVC elbow (threaded side).  You will be inserting the threaded side of the elbo through this hole so to get a tight fit, use your utility knife to cut through the vinyl wall of your barrel (garbage can).  The cut should be within the lines and a smooth circle so cut slow and easy making a marking cut first and then several controlled passes to cut out the circle.  After you have the hole cut, put some silicon sealant on the threads of the PVC elbow and then fit the threaded end of the elbow through the hole, screwing it in until it is snug and the outside of the elbow is pointing downward so it will drain.  Screw on the PVC coupler (nut) on the inside.  Apply a bead of silicon to both the inside and outside before tightening completely then wipe off excess.  Attach the 2′ section of 2″ PVC pipe to the outside of the elbow so it points downward (remember this is the drain… points down).  Allow to dry for an hour.

Step 5: Install Inlet and Rain Spout Diverter

I recently heard about compressed air vehicles that will be on the market this year in India.

Conventional Wisdom in the United States: Unfortunately compressed air as an energy storage medium for transportation is not possible. (Conventional wisdom being determined by the big three auto makers and endorsed by our government).

Reality: The first compressed air vehicles will begin production in India later this year. They fill up at the local gas station within minutes for about $2.00 and will travel up to 125 miles with a top speed exceeding 65mph. The car caled the OneCat can also be “recharged” overnight from an on-board electric compressor. At about $5,000 per car, it is not expected to ever reach the U.S. market and will most likely never be discussed anywhere other than Popular Mechanics and fringe media.

An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car in India that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in towns.

The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500.

The project is being backed by the Indian conglomerate, Tata for an undisclosed sum. It says the technology may also be used for power generation.

The car will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks.

The tanks, built into the chassis, can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes – much quicker than a battery car.

Alternatively, it can be plugged into the mains for four hours and an on-board compressor will do the job.

For long journeys the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel.

The designers say on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that.

Analysts say the fact that the project has the backing of an internationally well known company such as Tata makes the idea much more marketable.

The Indian company – which will put the finishing touches to the engine – says it is even considering using the technology for power generation.

Parts of the country are desperately short of electricity supplies. On Tuesday officials announced that Delhi and Moscow had finalised plans for Russia to build four new nuclear power stations in India.

Breakthrough
“The first buyers [of the compressed air car] will be people who care about the environment,” says French inventor Guy Negre.

“It also has to be economical.”

Mr Negre has been promising for more than a decade to be on the verge of a breakthrough.

The compressed air is stored in carbon-fibre tanks

Tata is the only big firm he’ll license to sell the car – and they are limited to India. For the rest of the world he hopes to persuade hundreds of investors to set up their own factories, making the car from 80% locally-sourced materials.

“This will be a major saving in total emissions,” he says.

“Imagine we will be able to save all those components travelling the world and all those transporters.”

He wants each local factory to sell its own cars to cut out the middle man and he aims for 1% of global sales – about 680,000 per year.

Terry Spall from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers says: “I really hope he succeeds. It is a really brave experiment in producing a sustainable car.”

But he said he was interested to see how the car would fare with safety tests and how much it would appeal to a public conditioned to expect luxury fittings adding to the weight of the vehicle.

Mr Negre says there’s no issue with safety – if the air-car crashes the air tanks won’t shatter – they will split with a very loud bang. “The biggest risk is to the ears.”

by Paul Miller, posted May 12th 2008 at 8:01AM

If destroying your roof just to get some sun-sucking solar panels installed isn’t your thing, Lumeta’s PowerPly could be the solution. The panels use traditional roofing adhesives, that’ll be familiar to regular ol’ roofers, and save the process from drilling holes and bolts associated with the regular rack systems required to mount solar panels. Right now this process is targeted at commercial projects — you can watch a pair of guys install 2.25 kilowatts of solar modules onto a California roof after the break — but hopefully residential applications won’t be far behind.

The Swansea Solar Paint project is led by Dave Worsley, who, together with his team, were researching ways to make make steel last longer. By chance that they started to focus on the degradation of paints in steel surfaces, when they realized that their research could lead them to develop a new way of getting energy from the sun.

The idea is to coat every piece of steel cladding with a solar cell paint. As steel is passed through the rollers multiple coatings of of the solar cell system are applied to it. Based on the preliminary research, the materials that are being applied are suited to capturing low level solar radiation, which means that they should work just as well in areas where the sun doesn’t directly shine on them.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/24/solar-power-without-a-solar-panel/