It is important to note that you must keep the water level above the bottom of the siphon tube to maintain the “charge”, and if the level drops below you will need to refill the tube. Great application though, love the idea.

Thank you sir

You can also just stuff some bread in the ends of the tube after filling it with water and it will dissolve and work the same way. And using agricultural tubing is a lot cheaper than PVC, just cut the ends at a 45* angle so it doesn’t bottom out.

Wow you got a years’ worth of Kool Aid now.

Your design does not allow you to release trapped gas bubbles at the apex of the tube, in-situ. I too am designing a rainwater barrel network. Siphons were my first consideration because they do not require modification of the barrels. I've designed my (potential) siphon so that I can monitor and replace air within the tube with water, in-situ, to prevent airlock. Useful things, siphons. Thanks for the video.

Connecting the taps will accomplish the same thing and you don't have to worry about the siphon going dry.

compared to a similar video i have watched this is extremely well explained

What do you use for lids, don't want mosquitoes breeding in there.

Back in the 1950's my farmer father "invented" a chain of siphon tubes to accomplish irrigating his farm from channels of river water. :-) (an electrical engineer turned farmer).

Elizabeth from far north California says, This is a great idea, Herrick, for us, since our house is off-grid, but not our water well a half mile away. It's pump is on city electric. Sometimes during our year, that company turns off electricity for a few days when it deems electric lines in the area could be taken out by wildfire, or they don't want the lines to spark from lightning strike, or limb drop to cause a fire. We live in a high fire danger area. Then what? We already have a reservoir of water near the house in which we can use a water pump, but not for the vegetable garden or orchard. Thanks for the reminder from your book!!!

Do the connections of long pipes have to be rounded? Could the pipes be connected at right angles? How far apart are the tubes?

I like the idea of using conduit it gives me an idea as I have a 50 ft roll of plastic pipe someone tossed

That is very good

If you used a closed drum system with bungs that have the knock out 3/4 taps would it still work with PVC threaded into the caps?

Great video and detail. Question, wouldn't the water in the siphon tube evaporate and brake the loop?

This is fine for open top barrels, we're trying it with barrels that have tops and only the double holes so you can't reach down into the water to release the plug. We are using the 'bread' technique to plug both ends of the tube filled with water, so far with NO success. It's jus not working....what are we doing wrong?????

How did you construct the siphon tube?

Amazing! Thanks for this. May i ask though if the u pipe will work if the drums are like 10 or more feet apart? Thanks in advance.

The only problem for me is that I would have to actually get enough rain to make this work. Where I live we only get about 10” of precipitation per year. Rain barrels aren’t really a thing here.we can go three months in the summer with no rain. Cool idea, though, I’ll have to go read about it in my book!

What happens when the water level gets below teh siphon? does the bottom valve have to be above the siphon tube?

I think it’s physic, dam right.🤪