Lucas, Here are some calcs to ponder. You would need to water your grass 1,200 to 1,800 gallons per week to keep your grass hydrated (2,000 sf). You would need about 500 gallons per week for the planting section(2,000 sf). Here is the breakdown: Grass assume 1 to 1.5" per week x 2,000 sf = 170 to 250 cf of water. 200 cf x 7.481 gallons/cf =1,500 gallons per week. Plants assume 2,000 sf @ 2 sf per plant = 1,000 plants. 1,000 plants @ 0.5 gallon per plant per week =500 gallons/wk. 4 Barrels @ 55 gal/bbl = 220 gallons. 2,000 gal/wk divided by 220 gal/bl = filling the barrels 9 time each week. Do you get enough rain to fill your barrels 9 time each week. Do you enough rain water to fill 38 barrels each week. Do you know what your Mom's water usage for landscaping is per month. Place a irrigation water meter in your landscaping system and measure the quantity for a month or even a week and multiply by four. I know this is not what you expected but this is reality unless some can show me I am in error. 4 barrels or 220 gallons would irrigate a garden about 800 sf only(good size garden). Check with your local experts about how much water per week your garden needs to survive and plug that into my calcs. A submersible pump would work fine. Aloha

Hi lehua13, Sorry for the long time it took to answer but only Today I checked the forum. Here is my list: - 550 Gal polypropylene tank $180 on a scrap place - windshield washer pumps $7 each at Napa store. - 12V DC programmable Timer $62 online - Two 24V DC 165W Solar panels $535 each. At full Sun I get 22Amps after converted to 12V DC. - 8 Batteries 6V DC deep cycle from Sam's Club $78 each. They are wired first in series and then in parallel to get the 12V DC. Also, the controllers transform 24V to 12V before feeding the batteries. - Complete system with tubing and spray nozzles $18 at Home Depot - Miscellaneous plastic tubes, T splitters and etc maybe around $30 Please note that the solar panels and batteries also take care of the external lights, garage lights, backup power for 2 computers + 1 Dell server. So the cost of the solar panels and the batteries are the big ticket but also they do lots of things for us. I run 2 wires 12VDC direct to 3 UPS 1250W. Since their own batteries kicked the bucket I connected direct to our battery bank. It have just to say that it works wonders on our case as we are not restrict to the individual power of the small original batteries of the UPS backups. Whenever I can I add a couple more batteries to the bank as it is a good insurance during hurricane season. I am guaranteed to get at least two/year as my wife gives me a birthday gift! To do only the irrigation you only need a small solar panel and a couple batteries as the pumps, that we have, use very little Amps. Since my last post I have removed one pump from the system and we are doing the dripping irrigation by gravity using a programmable solar irrigation controller with rain sensor (BRXCTRSiRS). Got it from the same place I bought the timer last year. It works perfect and I saves Amps from my battery bank for other tasks as well as water (if it is raining it automatically overrides the programming). Here we are Amp driven because we can save on electricity from the grid and doing so we are paying for all this investment! - Our new project is a hydroponic Strawberry system but it is too hot and humid outside now so we are doing it very slowly and waiting for the winter! Good luck and, again, sorry for the delay in answering.

Just a tip for anyone who is thinking about making his/her own rain barrels. The rain barrels on the website Buford purchased from look really nice; however, we've learned at least one thing the hard way from the experience of making our own and that is not to put the spigot up so high on the barrel. Some of the pictures on the rainbarrelsandmore.com website show the spigots at about the midpoint of the barrel. What happens then is that fully half of the water in the barrel can't get out through the spigot. If you make your own barrel and are putting a water spigot on it, I'd suggest you put the spigot down as low as you can, then put the barrel itself up on top of a sturdy cement block, rock, or board platform that is high enough to allow you to put a bucket or watering can under the spigot. One other thing we've learned is that you really don't get much water pressure from these things, even when they're full of water and lifted up off the ground. In our community garden, we had planned to attach drip hoses to them that would be gravity fed, but they really don't have enough pressure to force the water down through a drip hose. So we water by hand with watering cans. You may wonder when you see the photos, so I'll just say that we're not using these barrels to collect rain, only to distribute water throughout the garden. But there are two things to think about when converting your barrel; 1)how will the water get inside of it and 2)how will you get the water out of it when you need it. From my own personal experience I also recommend cutting a hole in the top that is circular and just about as big in diameter as the barrel. The reason being, it allows you to pretty much climb inside the barrel to clean it out as needed. We've been using our barrels for only one season and I've had to clean algae off the insides quite a few times already. (not just from the inside of the semi-opaque white barrels in the picture but also from the inside of colored ones that the sun doesn't shine through) If you look up how-to directions for rain barrel conversions online, most of them will tell you to cut a smaller, rectangular hole in the top. And (again, my own experience - maybe yours will be better!) in addition to the smaller hole making it harder to keep the inside clean, I also found that opening up the whole top instead of just cutting a small square made it much easier to put in the spigot, and to reach around to put the spigot lower down on the side of the barrel. We're using plastic sheeting tied on top to keep out mosquitos, but if I were collecting rainwater from gutterspouts I think I would use a stiffer aluminum or plastic window screening with a hole cut in that to insert the gutterspout. And in case you're wondering, the plastic sheeting doesn't work that well (eventually cracks up because of sunlight exposure). It was just a cheap and quick fix. I'm hoping to be able to afford to use rolled window screening next year. Here is a link that might be useful: Photos of Homemade water barrels with spigots

Bart, Can you access this web site: https://www.misterlandscaper.com/ If so, they should have everything you need. I can walk you though the process. Since you don’t have water pressure, other than gravity, I suggest you use 1/2 feeder hose, and 1/4 inch rubber tubing. Both of these should withstand freezing with water in the hose/tube. Instead of having a dripper at the end of the line I suggest you just install a 1/4-in Vinyl On/Off Valve. That way you just adjust the amount of water coming out at each plant. It will take some adjusting on your part but once you have it working all you will have to do is turn the water on at the tank come Spring and off in the Fall. Simple as that. To get the water to each plant will require a lot of connectors 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch units, plus the hose. So the best thing to start with is a layout of your garden with a map of the hose run then a list of the connector. That way you can price it out before you spend a lot of money Use the 1/2 inch hose from the tank to the garden then 1/4 inch tubing to the plants. They have ’T’ connectors that can be used to split the water flow. They also have tools for making the hole into the 1/2 hose where you would install a 1/4 inch connector. Even Goof Plugs in case you make a hole in the wrong place…. lol So, to get started, count how many plants you need to water. That is the number of variable on/off units you will need. You could use one on/off unit for more than one plant so consider that. The distant from the tank to the garden is the amount of 1/2 hose. Of course you could run the 1/2 hose around the outer edge of the garden then use the 1/4 inch to each plant. At the end of the 1/2 hose I suggest you install what they call a Poly End Crimper so the hose can be drained each Fall. It’s nothing more than a figure 8 unit that you put the hose through one hole then bend it back onto it self and run it through the other hole. The bend in the hose stops the water flow. Cost it out and let me know… Toolbelt