Forum home› Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Water butt dilemma

alison1cooperalison1cooper Posts: 6
in Problem solving
Hi, I’d be grateful for any suggestions here please! I collect water off my greenhouse roof and off a small lean to at the side of the house but I’m not collecting very much in this mainly dry weather and it runs out really quickly. I’d really like to be able to collect water off the house roof as a lot must fall there but the position of the only downpipe at the rear of the house makes this difficult because there’s a door on one side (which opens towards the down pipe) and a window the other side. The bottom of the window is about 1m from the ground.
Suggestions appreciated! Thanks, Alison
«13

Posts

  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    The water butt doesn't need to be right next to the downpipe, you can place it anywhere convenient and use longer hose lengths to connect it to the diverter you install in the downpipe. You need to make sure you get your levels right to ensure that the butt does fill and that the diverter overflow also works correctly. So you could put the butt to the right of your window if that didn't obstruct access.
  • Loraine3Loraine3 Posts: 579
    Check the instructions before you buy; I had planned to have a longer hose from down pipe but the instructions said this wouldn't work. We ended up diverting the down pipe so the short hose provided worked.
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I'd guess if the collector in the down pipe was sited high enough to allow the water to flow "down" into the water butt, it should be fine? you'd have to have an overflow pipe going into a drain somewhere
    Devon.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    It would (I think!) be a fairly simple job to get somebody to move the downpipe to the right of your window, then an overflow pipe at an angle back into the drain? The small 100 litre water butts are useful for narrow spaces, we have two linked together under the dining room window. You can see the tops from inside the house but I stand 3 decorative flower pots on the windowsill to hide them.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • Greenfingers23Greenfingers23 Posts: 16
    Hi Alison I bought a Rainpod a little while ago and helped my issue similar to yours. You basically install it by your drainpipe then move your water butts where you want them. It’s pretty neat and catches loads of water here are some pictures. I have two water butts behind the bushes, aiming for four as I have a good space cheers
  • alison1cooperalison1cooper Posts: 6
    Thanks all for your suggestions, sorry I didn’t see them til now. I was a bit anxious about making the connecting pipe too long in case something went wrong. We’re not very good at DIY! The Rainpod sounds interesting, I will Google it. Thanks 
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    We also haven’t anywhere where we can collect rainwater off the house Without blocking paths. We’ve connected four large waterbutts together for collecting rain off the greenhouse. It’s surprising how much we collect off one relatively small roof.
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • alison1cooperalison1cooper Posts: 6
    Wow, the rainpod looks an ideal solution! Why haven’t I heard of this before? Thanks for suggesting!
  • PianoplayerPianoplayer Posts: 624
    Hi - I have exactly the same problem, alison1cooper, so was really interested to see potential solutions. Thanks from me too to @Greenfingers23 for the Rainpod suggestion!
  • Singing GardenerSinging Gardener Posts: 1,237
    We have two water butts which are across the path from the downpipes. We just use normal diverters and the pipe runs down under the path and back up again. If you get the levels correct this works fine.
Sign In or Register to comment.