Peter Ormond is a man on a mission — he wants to be free of the city's water supply.

"I'd like to go off the water grid," he said. "I'm looking forward to an outdoor shower."

Ormond is an engineer with a passion for environmental causes.

"I've always had a lot of rain barrels. Mother Nature gives us water, so why not try and harness that energy?"

Ormond is true to his words. His north-end house is outfitted with a water-catchment system that includes four 1,000-litre tanks in addition to four smaller barrels.

He can store up to 5 cubic metres of water. That's about 1,300 gallons — enough to fill the gas tank of an average mid-sized car about 80 times.

He said he sees the re-emergence of rain barrels as a rediscovery of past common practices.

"We're just reinventing the things our grandparents did naturally."

Larry Pomerantz, owner of Stoney Creek rain barrel supplier RainBarrel.ca, said demand is growing.

"We're selling more and more rain barrels every year," he said, adding that RainBarrel.ca's business more than doubled between 2010 and 2011, and is on pace to grow again.

Pomerantz's company partners with nonprofit groups to sell barrels in their local communities for fundraising events.

"We just finished shipping rain barrels to a school in Red Lake, Ont.," said Pomerantz. "I never thought we'd be sending barrels that far north."

One local community group hoping for a fruitful outcome from the partnership with Pomerantz is Hamilton Victory Gardens, a local organization that grows food for the Good Shepherd Centre's hot-meal program and a local food bank.

The organization is hosting a rain barrel sale Saturday, and its chairman, Bill Wilcox, said the fundraising opportunity was ideal given the nature of his group's work.

They also happen to use rain barrels.

"We have two barrels on our first site," Wilcox said, adding the group is looking to add more to its other locations.

You can find a rain barrel in Wilcox's own garden, too.

Collecting rainfall run-off doesn't just lessen the load on your wallet; it also lessens the load on your sewer.

"When people purchase a rain barrel, they disconnect their downspout and rainwater is diverted from our storm water sewers," said Julia Wagner, project manager with the city's environment and sustainable infrastructure division.

This is especially important in communities Hamilton, with older combined storm and sanitary systems that become overburdened after major storm events and dump untreated waste water into the harbour, Wagnersaid.

"People are now looking at other ways to be more environmentally conscious and waaid. "They're seeing the value of it, respecting that resource more."

"And they're realizing that disconnecting their downspouts and capturing rainwater is a great thing to do, not just for themselves, but for the community, too."

pattiephilips@thespec.com

905-526-3354