I talked this morning about the rain barrels I have in my back yard as well as the ones I'm making for people at work, here's a link that got me started
http://www.fallschurchenvironment.org/usingrainbarrels.html
The Hyatsville contact is correct, but they are actually selling the barrels at $5, not the listed $10! The setup I've come up with costs about $20 (with the barrel) though I'm not including the cost of 4 cinder-blocks.
Glenn
Additional photos
Sorry, had to take these in a hurry a few nights back, and it was getting dark, this is the 'design' of rain barrel I have around my house, up on some cinder-blocks, and pretty basic overflow (black tube), a regular faucet, (I've found the hot water heater drains appear to work really well, I'll put together a parts list soon) and last night was able (with the help of KB3QOU) tack down the upper 2x4 downspout connector that with a little cutting on the upper 'bung' of the 55 gallon used Pepsi barrel, allowed the piece of fiberglass screen to fit nicely with no additional hardware. I've had a pair of these on two of my downspouts for nearly 5 years now. I always drain them, flip them over and put up the 'old' downspounts that I save in the shed, once the winter comes and we start having freezes. I've got simple short sections that reach up to the first story gutters on my place, still working on the 'technique' for second story downspouts with two friends at work. The screen keeps the mosquitos out, and occasionally I have to drain and get the alge loose from the sides (the barrels are translucent) But works pretty well for 55 free gallons of rainwater. On my house they will both fill to overflowing when we have 0.2 inches of rain, a pretty typical fraction of a normal house roof feeding each one. Like I said, sorry about the out-of-focus pics, but I wanted to get something on the site soon.
You can pick up the barrels for $5 each at the local Pepsi bottling plant in Hyatsville or up near Baltimore, and with the parts that I've puzzled through (about $15) you can have a working rain barrel for about $20. (Though I didn't include the cost of the cinder-blocks, depending if you want the barrel high enough to stick a bucket under it, many people connect them to soaker hoses and thus don't need the additional height/pressure_head) I've seen barrels online for sale with the same hardware for over $130, and you can really sink some $ into complicated bypass/downspout adapters, but I figure there's no need for all that expense when, around here, you have to drain them for the winter. Glenn N3USP