GAINESVILLE — Mark Marlowe and wife Nancy moved to Hall County three years ago because of their love for Lake Lanier.

Now from their home, which overlooks the lake, all they see is the lake level dropping by the day.

So both Mark and Nancy, formerly of Marietta, have begun conserving their precious water supply any way they can.

"I have a shop downstairs and I noticed one day when it was pouring down rain," said Mark Marlowe, a retired pilot. "One gutter of water was just gushing out ... I said ‘Geez, that’s a waste.’"

As the water was flowing into the woods behind his home, Marlowe thought it could be put to better use.

"So when we started having the shortage I said I have the gutters coming down right beside the shop and nobody can see them," he said. "And I just put a big ol’ garbage can there and run the stuff right into the garbage can."

It was a quick way to save some precious water, he said.

"It was a done deal almost. It took me about five or 10 minutes to come up with the idea and figure out what I was going to do."

The homemade rain barrel cost Marlowe about $50, but the barrels also can be found online through retailers for about $100.

To install the homemade rain barrel, Marlowe had it pretty easy.

"My gutter was already too short so I just pulled the extension off and it was the right length," he said. "Then I bought a little plastic accordion that connects two gutters together and put that on there and it was just perfect," Marlowe said.

He used a 32-gallon trash can he bought from Home Depot that the gutter water flows into and also attached an overflow regulator.

Natalie White, the stormwater education coordinator for Athens-Clarke County, said there are a few things to think about before installing a rain barrel. Most important, she said, is the kind of barrel you choose.

"A lot of people get the 55-gallon plastic drums and convert them, and if you buy one of those just make sure that it contains food-grade material. It couldn’t have had oil or anything toxic in it," she said. "What you need to do is clean them out and because of the watering ban the only way you can do it is take it to a car wash, a hand car wash, and rinse it out there.

"It is pretty easy — you have a drain on the top and you want to be conscious about not creating a habitat for mosquitoes."

White also suggests to line the drain with insect screening and to add a spigot a third of the way up from the bottom of the barrel.

"On the inside there is some hardware to hold it into place and an elbow to direct it downwards, maybe 6 inches of PVC pipe," White added. "That is about it. And you hook it up to your downspout and it collects the rain. It can rain just a little bit for a short period of time, but because it is collecting from a large area the barrel can fill up very quickly."

Since Marlowe installed his rain barrel it has filled a few times and he has learned a few valuable lessons.

"I put too much chlorine in it because I was going to keep the algae growth down and I didn’t want any mosquitoes in there," he said. "My son is an environmental engineer ... And he said ‘Dad, you’ll kill anything you put that water on.’

"So I poured the water out that day and hooked it all back up and on Friday it rained again and it was full."

He also learned that the condensation created on the roof will also flow into the rain barrel.

"Really, what the rain barrel is is a stop gap when they really put some rationing on," he said. "I can pour it in the toilets, flush the toilets and probably you could use it to wash clothes."

To extract the water from the rain barrel, Marlowe uses a syphon or just a bucket. But some commercially made rain barrels have spigots that allow you to attach a garden hose.

"I haven’t been taking too much out because my wife has been collecting the water in the shower, and between the two of us we have a bucket each and all we are really watering is the pansies out there," he said.