Rain Barrel Leaks From Large Bung, Need Help Solving

[Bob123456789]

Hi there. I'm new.

I have a rain barrel that is a plastic food barrel on its side. It is connected to some PVC plumbing. It leaks from the large bung where I have removed the cap and screwed in 1/2 inch gray plastic PVC. I have tried Teflon tape, silicon around the pipe. None has solved the issue. I still always get a slow steady drip.

Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you solve it?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Bob123456789]

I meant to mention that the bung is plastic.

 

[Durgan]

I never successfully got a good fix from those types of barrel. I use the metal ones which have pipe thread fixtures and never leak.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?SSCLP 22 March 2012 Rainwater barrels connected to downspout.
The four drums connected to the house downspout. There is a total of 200 US gallons of water. The connections are removed in the Fall and the barrels emptied to prevent freezing.

 

[Beth_B]

Hi there. I'm new.

I have a rain barrel that is a plastic food barrel on its side. It is connected to some PVC plumbing. It leaks from the large bung where I have removed the cap and screwed in 1/2 inch gray plastic PVC. I have tried Teflon tape, silicon around the pipe. None has solved the issue. I still always get a slow steady drip.

Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you solve it?

Thanks for your help.

Welcome!

What you need is Henry's roof patch. Google it...available at pretty much any home improvement store.

 

[Bob123456789]

Thanks to both of you for your help.

Durgan. If I was starting from nothing and had your good advice I could have gotten a steel barrel. I now have my plastic barrel and need to get to work if I can.

Beth_B. Have you successfully used Henry's roof patch in these circumstances?

Has anyone ever seen a steel bung successfully used in a plastic barrel?

My barrel is a food grade 55 gallon.

Are there any other solutions that have worked for people?

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum!

Is there a thread where the join is? PTFE tape might work if so.

 

[Bob123456789]

Thanks Beth. Glad to be here to be able to learn from the experts.

Yes there is thread at this joint. I have tried standard Teflon tape and it didn't solve the problem.

 

[Bob123456789]

Here is a picture of a bung like mine.

The area where I am having the problem is where the arrow points to "3/4 inch Female NPT".

 

[Durgan]

There is two issues with rooftop water collection containers. Thickness of the area around the connections, and non-standard connectors. . Barrels must have standard pipe fittings and wall thickness sufficient where fittings are added to withstand the stress. The ones sold in hardware stores are usually a scam. The overflow pipe is far to small in diameter. It should be around four inches. Usually the plastic wall is too thin to make a new fitting hole, also the curvature of the barrel makes sealing difficult.

I have one plastic barrel which I use for dipping the water out. The metal barrels for collecting water from the roof are food grade but quite thin walled and have to be handled with care, but the price is usually around $15.00. The threaded holes are standard pipe thread. I got about 5 years out of my metal barrels before they developed leaks by chaffing against the support posts.

 

[Bob123456789]

Would replacing my 2 inch bung that has fine thread with one that has coarse thread solve anything?

Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Knock-Buttre...00VVWJ0EI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Durgan. I like your use of steel fence posts for the frame. Mine is set up similar orientation, but I used 2 by 4 s to build my frame and painted them. I'm sure mine took longer to build and isn't as strong. I also like the $15 steel barrels.

 

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?XHGLB 8 April 2009 Downspout Rainwater
Pictures indicating a simple, practical method of utilizing downspout rainwater. Barrels cost 15 dollars and all parts are standard plumbing fittings. Any urban downspout system must address the overflow problem during rainfall. The large bung hole is a reasonable compromise for overflow. The height is such that a hose may be utilized for watering plants, but I usually use five gallon buckets on a two wheeled cart. The system is readily expandable by cascading more barrels in line. I have four barrels, two on each side of the house. the system is essentially closed, hence mosquitoes are not a problem.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ZVABL 16 April 2009 Downspout Water Connection.
Seasonal connections. The downspout water system was switched over to Summer mode by connecting the downspout to the storage barrels.

 

[Bob123456789]

I just came in from carrying a couple of buckets of water from my rain barrel after the recent rain and wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me get it working and in case it helps anyone else solve a similar issue.

My barrel had two bungs. One had NPT (National Pipe Thread, standard pipe thread) and one was fine thread. I had initially set it up so that the NPT bung was the overflow and the fine thread was where I fill the barrel. The fine thread bung connection is where mine was leaking.

The cheaper fix would have been to swap the bungs so that my leak happened from the top of my barrel. Instead I used the bung shown in the link above from Amazon which had NPT thread. Aside from it not leaking the two small benefits of using the Amazon bung are that I can fill the barrel slightly higher and some day I would like to connect another barrel in series using this bung.

 

[Dinu]

Bob 1 to 9,
Why have you kept the barrel on its side? Why not vertical? Please, would you show us a photo or two - how have you kept, where have you kept and the leaky area?