It is the summer and you want your lawn looking green just like the neighbours.

Watering your lawn using a sprinkler uses 10 litres of water every minute. If you water your lawn for the one hour every three days for the three months of summer you would have used 18000 litres of water.

The average price of water in Canada is about 86¢ for 1,000 litres. At that price keeping your lawn green during the summer will cost you $15.48 per year.

There is a cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution. You could use a rain barrel. The modern rain barrel is a plastic container that collects rain water from your down spout. You then use this water to water your lawn.

The average cost of a rain barrel is $40 and each rain barrel holds about 200 litres of water. With two or more rain barrels connected to each other your should be able to water your lawn (as long as it rains) every summer for free.