Monday 8 September 2014

Storage Barrels

We went to a car boot sale at the weekend and there was a guy selling these 30 litre barrels in good condition for £3 each or 4 for £10. I brought 8 which was as many as I could fit in the car. I've got his number so I might go and buy some more yet. 
They have the metal band lids that snap shut and are a food grade plastic (they've been used for shipping sweets from Barcelona apparently). They're really clean inside and out and perfect for hundreds of uses. 
I was thinking that this year I could brew my cider in them, make some elder flower wine in them next spring, store bulk quantities of sugar and salt in them, store water in them, corn and other animal feed in them (although they're not that big) - even store rat poison in one to stop the rats and mice getting in my poison bags. You can even make chicken spring feeders with this type of barrel as well, just add some legs and fit a spring feeder to a hole in the bottom. 
What other uses can you think of for them? How many do you think I should get?

17 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I was pleased. I think I'm going to go and buy a van full. I think they'll always be useful and I can brew lots of wine and cider in them.

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  2. I have 10 barrels like that mine are yellow again they were used for bulk food shipment, I used them when we were moving to keep dried food stuff in, as I am short of cupboard storage here in the kitchen they are still used for storing vac bags of dehydrated food it means I can store them in the barn and not worry about vermin getting into them, I intend to fill one with rice when I sort out food store another for wheat grain and one for flour and one for sugar.

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    1. They are a great way to keep out the mice and rats as well as keeping it air tight. I've got a few plans for them in my head.

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  3. You can never have enough storage barrels or sheds and outbuildings on a smallholding, Kev. They sound like a good buy. I store my animal ration in wheely bins to keep the rats and mice out.

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    1. The wheelly bins are about £40 as i looked into getting some for the same thing. these are a bit small for feed bins but have hundreds of other uses.

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  4. We use the same type of bins for animal feed storage, and they most definitely did not cost £3 each! You got a real bargain there. Ours cost about £40 each!

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    1. I think yours must have been bigger as these are only 30L capacity so not that big really. Still cheap though.

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  5. The hardware/DIY shops are full of them in France - we use them to store fruit before sending off to the still to make eau-de-vie. Boy, I wish we could buy them for £3!

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    1. They were a good buy. Been on eBay as well and they're pretty expensive there as well.

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  6. We have some of those as collection containers in our compost loo :)

    Great useful containers, good for storand dried goods in the pantry (pop all the unopened bags in one away from mr Mouse!)

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    1. Another use I hadn't thought of for when I get my composting loo!

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  7. we have those as rain butts in our garden. the previous owner got them for free from the pharmacy department at the local hospital. they apparently have to pay to have them taken away.

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    1. They might be a little small for that as these are only 30l. Shame I can't find someone thats willing to pay me to take them away!

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  8. We use these containers for storing water to supply to the chickens. We also use them for the dry chicken food. I have one in my garden with manure tea in for the plants. Hubby installed a tap on it for me for easy draining. We also have one cut in half to use for potting up larger plants like our potted lemon tree. They are very handy indeed. We pay $20 each for ours at a store in the city. Most of ours are black, but we do have a couple of blue ones :)

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