Upcycled
tote builds

Rainwater harvesting, done properly

Central Texas gets its annual rainfall in a handful of violent events, which makes storage volume worth far more here than it is in a temperate climate. A 275 gallon tote fills from about 450 square feet of roof in a one-inch rain. Two totes on a modest house roof will carry a vegetable garden through most of a dry August.

1. Screen first. A stainless leaf screen at the inlet stops the debris that turns a tote into a compost bin.
2. Divert first flush. The first two gallons off a roof carry the bird droppings, the pollen and the asphalt grit. A first-flush diverter dumps them before they reach storage.
3. Shade the bottle. Translucent HDPE plus sunlight plus nutrients equals algae, guaranteed. We supply a shade sleeve or you can paint the bottle — either works, doing nothing does not.
4. Overflow deliberately. Plumb the overflow away from your foundation. A tote that backfills against a slab is a very expensive way to save water.
5. Elevate for pressure. Every foot of height gives you about 0.43 psi. A tote on a 4-foot stand gives you enough head for drip irrigation without a pump.
6. Link in series, draw from one point. Bottom-linked totes equalise and let you take everything from a single tap.

Growing in totes

Wicking planters

Cut a tote to two-thirds height, keep the cage as the frame, line the reservoir, add a fill tube and an overflow, and you have a self-watering bed that holds 40 gallons of reserve under the root zone. In an Austin July, a wicking bed needs topping up once a week instead of twice a day. It is the single most water-efficient way to grow vegetables in this climate.

Aquaponics

A standard pairing is one tote cut lengthways as a media grow bed sitting above an intact tote acting as the fish tank and sump. We fit bulkheads, a bell siphon for flood-and-drain cycling, and a cage-mounted frame so the whole assembly is rigid. Use an A-grade food tote for anything with fish in it — livestock deserve the same provenance standard as food.

What not to grow in

We will not sell a C-grade or unknown-history tote for edible growing, and you should not buy one from anyone who will. Soil contact plus root uptake plus unknown prior contents is a genuinely bad combination. Ornamentals, fine. Tomatoes, no.

Wash stations, coolers and the odd jobs

• Portable hand-wash stations: foot-pump or 12 V pressurised, with a basin, soap mount, paper holder and a separate grey-water tote underneath. Popular with food trailers, festivals and job sites.
• Evaporative coolers: tote body, pad frame, pump and blower. Crude, cheap and remarkably effective in the dry part of a Texas summer.
• Ballast and erosion control: filled totes as temporary barriers, sign ballast and film-set weights. C grade is perfect and the rental economics are excellent.
• Compost tea brewers, dust suppression tanks, mobile fuel-polishing rigs, brewery grain hoppers, dog-wash stations. If you can sketch it, our fabrication bay has probably already built something close.