So this morning D&L and I got together early for a flying trip to the big town about 50 miles away. There were at first literally only two stops: Drop L off at Wally World while D and I ran through Lowe’s, then back on the road home. Objective: Home by noon. We almost made, it, too.
But D got seduced by the gun shop of a sporting goods store, and since we were already in that strip mall I ran into a Petsmart to get LB a box of biscuits.
The trip couldn’t possibly have come at a better time, because yesterday afternoon I realized that while I have a whole bunch of 4X4 pieces, only four of the necessary six are long enough. I was so sure I had everything I needed to make a relatively cute porch with railing, then learned with a shock I didn’t even have the minimum needed to hold the whole thing up! But it’s okay now.
The original purpose of the trip, believe it or not, was to score a couple of water bottles. D also wanted to buy a spare, but in my case I’ve learned with some shock as I go into the hot season that with LB sucking down his share I literally don’t have enough 3-gallon bottles to get through a week. I can do it with my 5-gallon reserve bottle (which I also want to supplement this summer because that’s not enough reserve) but not with the more easily-toted 3-gals. He always drank well water before now, and I really hadn’t noticed how much water LB drinks when it gets into the 90’s.
We tore the town apart, and found a single bottle in a little roadside general store where D had found one before. I don’t know if they’re going out of style or what: They used to sell these at Lowe’s. So anyway, since there was just the one available D&L kindly let me buy it. Store clerk said it had just come in: They’d ordered five and got one, and it’s dusty like it got forgotten in the corner of a warehouse somewhere.
The “cute” nature of the Lair’s new porch is getting more notional and improvised every day, but I haven’t completely forgotten it. I do have a plan for prettying up the railings, and look!
Cheap caps for the 4X4 uprights! That’s kinda cute. Right?
Also, at Lowe’s I found some cheap lamps so I can finally cover up the bare bulbs in the bedroom and closet.
Guess I’m still nesting in there, because I brought in the ladder and connected the closet lamp before I’d even had lunch. Looks pretty good! At least by comparison with a bare bulb.
Would either of these work for you:
https://tinyurl.com/yb8zq3v2
-or-
https://tinyurl.com/ya2afpod
???
Mark, those are the basic sort I use, yeah. I’ve never seen them stackable before. That’s interesting.
Note that it says stackable EMPTY ONLY!!
“stackable EMPTY ONLY” You have good eyes! But even then, it still sounds like a useful feature.
Ooh. Good catch, Kentucky.
How about food grade buckets available from Lowes for about $4 a piece?
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Encore-Plastics-5-Gallon-Commercial-Food-Grade-Bucket/3694238
One can never have too many food buckets.
Joel, I have access to 1 gal food buckets with lids at 1 buck each – don’t buy any, will send you some. Am also checking on the water bottles from same source. Nice work on the piers, they look all in line from the photo 😉
Thanks!
Food grade buckets as water containers. Genius. And, with Gamma lids they’re stackable. Thanks, M. Silvius.
Joel – if you’re gonna’ throw money at this water business – what about the variety of gravity fed, ceramic (or other media) filtered systems that you can build from a 5 gal. bucket? I bet there’s a range from assembled systems (delivered by drone to your doorstep/airlock) to forums where the DIYers put the pieces together and save some scratch – all at your fingertips.
I don’t have any facts and figures to throw at you in terms of addressing your mineralisation from local sources – but they’re out there readily available. Don’t forget the idea of prefiltering thru a cheaper medium to keep from clogging up your best filters.
Best of all you can better control those PBFs – help keep the rooskies at bay!
Plug Nickel Outfit:
The device is called a Tinajero.
https://www.thehunt.com/the-hunt/VWCak4-tinajero
That was our source of cool, purified drinking water as a kid in Caracas. Consists of a porous/sandstone rock top bowl, and a terracotta lower container. Fill the top one with unfiltered water and as it seeps through the sandstone rock it is cleaned. Once a year we cleaned it all out and would trow a chunk of sulfur rock in the top one to help purify the water.
Cool! I never heard of those.
I recommend you check with your local feed store re: second hand food grade water barrels (55 gallon). They have them here sometimes for cheap. You will have to wash them out and bleach them yourself. Kids here cut them down for their FFA projects. One 55 gallon drum fits nicely in the back seat of my CR-V.
I position the barrel before filling of course, but, if you have a water siphon, you will be all set with a big water reserve with just a couple of barrels.
Are Gamma lids available for one-gallon buckets?
FWIW, the Walmart Online website has 3 gal. water bottles with carry handles for $8.75, which is a much better price than Amazon. If you have a way to order them online you could have them delivered to your town’s Wally World for pick-up.