5 Gallon Bucket Articles, Videos and Community

Soil Sifter

Posted on May 3, 2012 by trevor

If you are comfortable with destroying the liquid retaining qualities of one of your buckets, you could use one to sift compost. Here is a series of pictures from one of the screeners I made. I used a 1/2″ drill bit to make these holes, but you could choose to go thicker or thinner, depending on what you are screening out.

To sift, just shake the bucket up and down or side-to-side using the handle. I find sifting dry soil or compost is easier than sifting wet, chunky blobs – but this is true no matter what type of soil sifter you are using.

The best part of this design is that you can sift directly into another 5 gallon bucket, with no mess!Update June 2012: A month after posting this, I found a fancier version that needs hardware cloth, but is probably a little bit quicker to make, and might sift better as well. Why not make both and see for yourself!

See the full article at skylighter.com.

Washing Machine

Posted on April 24, 2012 by trevor

Category: 5 Gallon Bucket Uses

It’s very easy to make a five gallon washing machine, you just need the following ingredients:

Drill
Plunger
Five Gallon Bucket
Tight fitting lid

Make sure you use a brand-new, clean plunger for this project. Here’s a link to a cheap one on Amazon.

Building this unit is very simple, just take note of these 2 special design features that will make your washer work more effectively.

Tight entry hole Cut the hole in the bucket lid to fit the plunger handle snugly, to ensure water doesn’t find its way up and into your face.

Plunger holes Drill about a dozen 1/4″ on the sides and top of the plunger to allow the water a place to flow through.

If you skip this step, your plunger will buckle and won’t pump up and down smoothly.

An even simpler design

You can simplify this design drastically, just fill one or two buckets with soapy water and your laundry, and agitate your clothes thoroughly. See our article on hand washing in a 5 gallon bucket.

The 5 Gallon Bucket Book

Posted on April 23, 2012 by trevor

Category: 5 Gallon Bucket Uses

It looks like I’m not the first person to start publishing five gallon bucket uses! This guy beat me to the topic by about 12 years, which is half my lifetime so far.

I only buy about two books a year, and this was one of them this year. Used copies can be had very cheaply over on Amazon.

I only paid about 5 bucks for the book, and honestly that’s about what it’s worth. Many of the ideas are jokes, although about 40% of them are interesting. I would give this book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Black Soldier Fly Larvae Breeder

Posted on April 8, 2012 by trevor

Category: 5 Gallon Bucket Uses

Here’s a pretty extreme use for a five gallon bucket. With a dead animal inside, it can act as a breeder for fly larvae, commonly known as maggots. Leave holes in the sides of the buckets, and the maggots will crawl out, only to eaten by eager chicken mouths.

Warning: While this is a really cool idea, using diseased or questionable meat can lead to disease carried through the maggots into the chickens. There has been at least one reported case of chickens dying of botulism using this method. Botulism is an anaerobic bacteria, so making sure oxygen can freely enter the chamber is very important!

Step 1: Drill holes in the side of bucket, near the bottom.
Step 2: Throw inedible meat inside (road kill, dead pets, meat scraps, etc.)
Step 3: Put a thick layer of straw, leaves or dry grass clippings on top to eliminate the rotting smell.

This technique reminds me of a recent faircompanies profile on a woman who breeds edible insects for tacos at her insect taco stand. You may be able to use a similar method to the maggot breeder to breed meal worms for human food!