Solar Water Pump for Rain Barrels

I have been gardening the last few years and rainwater does so much better at providing nutrition to our plants than city water! After getting a couple 50 gallon rain barrels, I was excited to test them out, only to find that the water pressure was awful. I expected to have a little more pressure with 100 gallons of water, but it was SLOW! I could have run an outlet to the exterior of my house and plugged in a 120v pump, but I've been wanting to experiment with solar for a while and so I decided to dive in. This will also allow us to use this system anywhere without relying on electricity. This system setup works great for our rain barrel setup, but can work in a variety of different situations. I hope that the information is helpful for you and if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments and if I know the answer, I'll let you know! Peace and God bless!

Charge Controller:

[giovannirueda]

I recently started thinking about doing this. But after watching this video certainly it certainly shed light on some of the questions and how the how to's. Certainly adding this to my project list. Thanks for sharing!

[gordonreeder]

This is perfect. I have rain barrels for my garden but use a hand pump and watering can to water the garden. But mostly I'm lazy and just use city water. I've got to do this project. I have a solar panel with a charge controller. So I'm already half way done. I just ordered the pump and battery from Amazon. I'll let you know how it works out.

[brandonwyatt]

Another awesome video.
I was just talking about off grid watering system with Justin.

[craftsmen]

good job, I am about to build my own solar pump system, thank you.

[amyreaves]

Good job. Looks nice and even better because it works.

[JeffLavezzo]

"45 degree angle". As far as I know, the ideal angle for a solar panel is whatever your latitude is. If you're at 20 deg north, face the panels south and tilt them 20 from horizontal. If you're at 45 degrees north, then 45 degrees is the right angle.

[newguy]

You should market this. I'd buy one.

[johnbrownlee]

I'm starting a nursery business on my property, but my county water pressure is so low that I can't run sprinklers. I have a couple ibc totes that I can connect together and use this to run sprinklers/hoses/mist system. I've been looking for a solution that's cheaper than $3000 to repair the well. Thanks!

[taragilbert]

Thank you! Great video with all the steps. I've wanted to do this because I'm tired of filling buckets from my rain barrels. Looks like you had lots of water pressure. Would it have enough power to run a sprinkler?

[joanhuang]

Very helpful video! The pump suggested is "currently unavailable" on Amazon. Is there an alternative pump you would recommend that's currently in stock? Thank you so much!

[JohnSmith-efrg]

Great video!
Does the water pump shut off when you let go of the trigger on your garden hose?

[nathanaelor]

We're missing the link for the charge controller

[JoshuaMason-ri]

If you took the teflon tape and did it counter clockwise...wouldn't that prevent the unraveling of the tape in place of wrapping it 4 times?