Stacking Water Barrels - Continued
Most water barrels come with threaded bung caps which can be cut out with a utility knife. A standard 3/4" threaded hose bib from Lowes or Home Depot can be threaded into this with a little Teflon tape.
I purchased some caps for the hose bibs on Amazon as a little added security from curious kids deciding to open the valve. By installing just one hose bib per barrel, you can loosen the top cap in the barrel when filling or draining the barrels to relieve pressure.
This is a standard water barrel bung wrench which you can find for $5-10 on Amazon.
The picture below shows an original idea I tried which would have connected all 4 water barrels together with PEX tubing and would allow you to drain and fill the entire system at once. Although this could have worked, I got a little nervous about the system. For one, if you have a leak you could end up with 200 gallons on the floor, second, you end up with more water pressure on the threaded inserts on the bottom barrels because of all the water above them, and lastly, I noticed when the barrels where filling the top of the barrel did flex out a bit and was putting some pressure on the PEX which I worried over time would be putting undo pressure on the threaded bung joints and may be more apt to fail. I decided to abandon this approach and go with an individual hose bib on each barrel.
The picture below shows me filling the barrels one at a time from the hose connected to a hose bib in the neighboring mechanical room.
This picture below shows the final product filled with water, four 55 gallon water barrels stacked vertically in the closet.
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