Customer Reviews

Algreen 81001 Cascata 65-Gallon Rain Water Collection and Storage System

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Length:: 2:56 Mins

Algreen 81001 Cascata Rain Water Collection and Storage System, 65 Gallons

These Algreen Cascata "barrels" are gorgeous. I've had folks knocking at the door wondering where in the world I got them. I have three and would order another except Amazon is out of them. The free shipping was also a plus.

Pro:

1. Beauty. Drop dead gorgeous.

2. Strength. Planter is double lined. Body is strong and should hold up fine.

3. Easy assembly. You'll need one slotted screwdriver.

4. The planter at the top. This is great with fuschia, for example.

5. Will hold 65 gallons. This is 10 gal. more than my other barrels.

Con:

1. Drain hose is cheap; it crimps. Replace this with a decent hose.

2. Does not come with an overflow hose. You'll have to get a pool overflow hose at Home Depot or Lowes, plus a hose clamp, if you don't want it to overflow on its own foundation, causing major problem.

3. Planter is great to have, but it could be deeper. You'll need to line it with moss, or else hole drill for drainage.

4. This is not the type of barrel you'd want to string together with other barrels, probably, but if you did want to, you couldn't unless you mounted one barrel lower than the first one.

Overall: I'd buy another one in a second it they were available. This is the best looking barrel out there for the front of your home. True terra-cotta color. The company is Canadian, and the quality is quite high. I love mine.

I purchased four of these barrels through Amazon. Three of the four barrels leaked profusely where the white plastic fittings met the molded plastic of the barrel body. Two leaked from the fitting housings on the bottom of the barrel and the other on the housing for the spigot. In all three cases, the leak was fast enough that within 6 hours of filling the barrels, they were virtually empty again.

I contacted the company, relying on their stated 20 year warranty, and when customer service did finally respond five days after I left my initial phone message, their solution was to send me a tube of black, rubbery silicone to apply to the fixture housings. Obviously, this solution destroys much of what is good about these barrels, their attractive appearance; and was no where near satisfactory as a customer service response.

One of the barrels leaks to this day (I guess I didn't get the silicone goo applied appropriately). When I contacted the company again, they demanded proof of purchase. I faxed them a copy of the Amazon invoice which they claimed never to have received. I emailed them another copy, to which their response was that they "have no business relationship" with Amazon. To date, they have finally (after two months of back and forth) offered to replace one barrel, but apparently feel their black silicone solution is sufficient for the other two.

Bottom line, I would never buy another product from this company again. A rain barrel should hold rain, and these do not at least 75% of the time in my experience.

I received my rain barrel in just 3 days. It is HUGE. Unlike the ugly recycled plastic rain barrels for sale elsewhere, this is a beautiful piece that adds to the aesthetics of my garden. It looks like a terra cotta planter. I planted strawberries in the top, so they can hang down the sides but not take over the garden. I bought a 1/2" boiler drain spigot, sprayed it with WD40, and inserted it into the overflow tube. Very tight fit. Then I attached a length of garden hose to the spigot and ran it away from the house. This solved most of the overflow problem. However, the overflow tube is not big enough to drain fast enough during a really hard, long rain. Water will escape by flowing between the top of the barrel and the crown planter. Prepare the foundation accordingly and do not place the barrel in a place where your basement may be easily flooded.

Length:: 0:43 Mins

Very quickly I wanted to point out the goods & the bads:

excuse the mess still under construction.

Goods:

lightweight when empty.

very realistic looking plastic terracotta.

overflow valve for attaching another rain barrel (higher capacity).

spigot in front for dispensing water.

screen trap to prevent leaves ext. from entering your barrel.

hose on the side for dispensing water.

room on top for hanging plant or pot.

Bads:

scratched up during shipment poorly wrapped (shrink wrap).

glue seams on bottom and spigot (see video).

water pressure relies on gravity so it needs to be full of water.

the lid does not drain so you will need to drill a hole in the middle.

if you have one downspout like I do you get higher rain volume so you need to attach a hose to the overflow valve and redirect the overflow (if you watch the video that is why I have a downspout right behind the rain barrel)or you can buy two and increase your storage capacity. Anyway hope this helps with your decision.

Overall I am very satisfied

I ordered three of these guys, and thanks to Amazon Prime, they came in 2 days for NO CHARGE! Assembly was super easy, just needed a flat-headed screwdriver to tighten one screw. I have them in place, they look great with our contemporary house, and they are half full already. I came back today to order two more, but Amazon won't let me! (Maybe they figured out the shipping outweighed their profit?)

The Cascata Rain Water Collection and Storage System is an excellent product that has many of the features I was looking for in a rain water system for waterig my flower and vegtable garden. I have this conneted to a small 12x12 ft shed that will fill this barrel at the rate of a little less that 1 inch of rain fall.

The features this product has that I could not find in other rain barrel designs are:

1. Color: color and texture are very close to teracota pot color and texture. I really looks like a large clay urn.

2. Shape: The location for this barrel is at the corner of a shed between a vegetable garden and a flower garden. I didn't want a big blue plastic barrel here because it would trask up my back yard. This product actually added to the astectics of my back yard.

3. Mesquito control: The Cascata barrel has a plastic perforated plate that fits under the removable top. It would be very diffucult for a mesquito to fly into the space between the removable top and the screen to even lay eggs that might fall through the screen and into the water. Other rain barrel designs have an open screen on the top that might allow for mesquito breeding even though the screen is in place.

4. Removable Top Planter: The removable top can be used as a planter. This feature again adds to the astectics and allows this product to blend into the shed garden area.

5. Hose and valve: There is a nice brass valve about 14 inches from the bottom for filling watering cans. There is a hose connected to the bottom with a valve on the end of the hose. This can be conected to a drip or soaker system or fill watering cans when the water level goes below the brass valve level.

6. Overflow port: Overflow port is located oposite the brass valve and is hidden from view when showing the brass valve side.

I plan to purchase another Cascata Rain Collection and Storage System and plan to place it on my patio for watering plants closer to my house.

I recently bought this rain barrel and a Spruce Creek one of equal expense (not sold on Amazon). I just got my first downpour since installing them (my professional rain gutter installer did it for me for $35). The Cascata wins. I live in Florida, where it rains really hard and long and often in the summer. The competitor rain barrel's design was a total fiasco, and the rain came down so fast out of my gutter downspout that most of the water splashed onto the ground because the collection screen was just too small (really disappointing-- that's $200 just thrown down the gutter, pun intended). The Cascata design for in-flow was much superior; all of the water went into the barrel. Note that my installer fed an S-shape gutter downspout about 1/4" into the hole.

Other posts have mentioned needing details for the overflow accesories on the Cascata, since it doesn't come with overflow tubing. The overflow nozzle is exactly 1" external diameter. For tubing (which I don't imagine you'd need if you lived in a desert where it's never actually going to fill), I bought the following at Lowe's and am pleased:

- Smartpond Corrugated Tubing, 1" internal diamer, 20ft length, model #ct1000, black (it was in the garden center in the section for constructing home ponds). I like the extra long length, but you could easily trim since it's not necessary.

- Stainless steel clamp that is at least 1.25 inches in diamter (I got item #66139 king seal fastener, 3/4 to 1.5").

- Optional: I got a 90-degree elbow joint by Lasco fittings (1 inch) part 140-10RMC (barcode 25528). If you choose to use the elbow joint, you'll need 3 of the above steel clamps rather than one, in addition to a tool to cut off about a 3-inch piece of the corrugated tubing

Note that I liked the look and quality of the Spruce Creek rainbarrel. I think it would be good if you lived in a place like the desert or the northwest where there are light rains and mist rather than heavy frequent downpours, or if you're not going to put it under a gutter downspout. It has better screens for mosquito prevention.

The barrel itself seems of good quality and certainly looks very good. The quality of the hose however is terrible, the worst I have ever seen in garden hoses. It is so tightly wound that its kinks and windings cannot be straightened out. The hose is so hard that it cannot be manupulated and is of non-standard size and thus very hard to replace. I wonder if the makers ever used the system themselves to cath the flaws.

The good:

It's pretty and seems quite sturdy. Once I have a pretty cascading plant growing from the top it will be an architecturally beautiful addition to my back deck.

The price at amazon.com was easily $50.00 cheaper than any other place I saw the same product.

The bad:

The system is taller than spec'd - probably spec'd without the top cover. Also it was missing the L connector for the bottom of the rain barrel. It took 3 distinct pieces from the sprinkler supply shop to build the missing L connector. Lastly the hose is cheap. It would be nice to see a better quality hose come with the product.