Amazing statement, that the system is near free. Here is what I see at my site: 1) house has a footprint of about 1300 sqft, but two of the six gutters are devoted to ostrich fern, a high water perennial. So is half the detached garage (to hardy kiwi), which has no gutters anyway. I have 1000 sqft to conserve into 2200 sqft of garden. None of this water runs off, it all percolates into the ground and supports trees and the water table. 2) Need to replace gutter covers, because they stop leaves, but let in elm seeds. It is also a Cape Cod, with nooks and crannies in the roof where stuff congregates, decays and washes off. Things are much better now, since the ash trees died (also purveyors of small seeds), and I cut five spruce. No way to filter all that junk while tons of water are washing into the barrels. That will be quite a penny. Just to give you an idea, where my driveway empties into the lawn, I have to shovel elm seeds with a snow shovel in season. 3) The facility (18 barrels) weighs a lot more than the garage, probably half the house. It needs its own concrete foundation, and good retainment. I am guessing it needs 150 ft of 4X4 and 300 ft of 2X4, plus bolts, etc. I cannot build it near the house or the city will get me. In the back of the garage, I need a nice 5 inches pipe (at least, it has to collect all the rain of 1000 ft during a rainstorm) running 60 ft through the lawn, at a slope of 1 inch per foot, with some nice posts in the middle of the lawn which I will bless every time I have to mow. The barrels may be free (I never found them, and I have two, each of which I paid $10), but I still have to take delivery, or make nine car trips (plus all the trips for the wood). That is no money? My barrels come from 27 miles out. 4) The braising of the plastic barrels. I have no tools, and no one I know has them. They cost, and probably a couple of barrels will be lost. Now, to get into the 21 beds, I need 1500 ft of PVC, and probably 100 connectors and 100 elbows. If the system is to be done right, the end caps must be removable at the end of the season to flush the lines. I need valves in many places, because in August the tomatoes need zero water, and the celery, 2 inches a week. 5) we are left with the simple matter of drilling holes. Perhaps as few as 2000 (but in beds with carrots or lettuce, you need many more), but because they are drilled, their overall area exceeds the area of the PVC, unlike, say, in drip irrigation. That means the system loses pressure quickly, and the far beds get a lot less water. And all this to save water that is insufficient, irregular in its supply, and ecologically clean but technically dirty. It has the appeal of being in liquid form, but there is a lot more of it being lost to evaporation (and mulch really is free). It is water I would never put in my drip system, and a drip system, also, is something that truly saves water, and can be put in in a couple of days of work, and it saves water whether it rains or not.

I use a submersible RIGID 1/6th HP submersible pump [looks exactly like this http://www.amazon.com/Wayne-RUP160-6-Horsepower-Oilless-Submersible/dp/B0009X8O2E]from Home Depot in my 2 barrel system, just drop it in with a garden hose attached. It sounds impressive 3000GPH, ya whatever, it produces about 20psi so not regular water pressure but it works and takes an hour to drain 110 gallons at 20psi though a sprinkler. I was using it to power the back and forth fan sprinkler, but the screen or jets would get plugged with small debris, and it just wasn't powerful enough for the tis, tis, tis, pulse sprinkler. I did however find a solution at a recent home show. http://www.rainforestsprinklers.com They were selling it to people with poor water pressure in the country, and who use pumps from a well and that sort of thing. It seemed perfect, so I bought the Rainforest 24' Riser Sprinkler for $20 bucks or so. Works really nicely covering a 20ft circle with 20psi. It's impressive with the regular water supply it was probably spinning 3 times faster, with a bit of mist created and a 35ft circle, but at 20psi it was a gentle rainfall and ran for 1 hour on the 2x 55 gallon drums full of water didn't get plugged once, has a fairly large hole for the water, and it was always tiny debris already ground up by the pump that came down the hose and plugged the fan sprinkler anyways, I just don't use one of those rubber o ring mesh screens with the rain barrel anymore. I'm happy with the 24' riser, and might even go with the 36' if you have a big yard, but I think the ground level one would be just too small of a water pattern with such low pressure. Anyways I was so impressed to finally be able to water my lawn without stopping to clean out the sprinkler.... I wrote the sprinkler company this was their reply 'Thanks for letting me know how well our sprinklers worked with your system and the rain barrels, we have been experimenting ourselves with them and managed to get a 15 ft diameter by just running connected to a rain barrel that was approx 12 ft higher than the sprinkler with no pump. We get many emails from people in places like Texas that couldn't run a sprinkler at all on their pressure and ours worked great for them and saved them hours of hand watering.' I would add to really shop around if your looking for a pump, most places want to sell you a pond pump that has no pressure, or tiny hoses, or a HUGE expensive jet pump that can produce 80psi and clean out your wallet, it's hard to find something in the middle cheap that takes garden hose. If I did it again maybe I would buy a bit higher HP pump, or a sump pump with a float if I could find one cheap. I think the higher HP would drain the barrels faster, but also give more PSI to run a regular sprinkler.

Anyone ever heard that you're not supposed to use food grade drums for vegetable watering?? Seems unlikely but that's what someone selling them on Craigslist said.

Actually, most controllers now do activate a pump. So you would be fine with getting the pump installed and getting a new timer. Toro EC-XTRA and Irritrol Raindial-R are a couple timers that allow for a pump/pump delay... Type in your zip code here to find a local Toro distributor: http://www.toro.com/en-us/locator/pages/default.aspx?countryCode=US&country=United States&serviceType=Buy&postalCode=92118&ResultType=Dealer&productType=94&productTypeName=Irrigation&categoryName=Contractor&skip=0amp;brand=Toro&selectedRetailer= Or here for Irritrol: http://www.irritrol.com/distsearch.aspx? The Toro LM2 also has availability for a pump to be connected but I am not sure that you can set a delay bw stations. The ECXtra and Raindial have that