This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Inadequate water-butt hose
elderberry
Posts: 118
In continuous rain, I checked the water going into my main water butt; it wasn't going as fast as I'd expected, so I pulled the hose off the downpipe to check for blockages. Unhindered by the hose, the water gushed out the downpipe. There was no blockage, it was just the inadequate hose itself which impeded the water so much. Now I'm thinking of just directing the downpipe straight into the butt, to get all the water.
Has anyone else come across such a problem,and how have you solved it?
0
Posts
This might sound obvious but have you made sure the water butt and hose are well below the level of the hose attached to the down pipe. We had a similar problem so dropped the water butt down a couple more inches and everything worked as it should.
It's a fair point, and in fact I have recently raised the butt, simply because it used to overflow. Now the hose is pretty much horizontal, which is, I believe, what's recommended; but yes, the flow rate is lessened.
I suppose the answer would have been to angle the hose down slightly, whilst making sure the point at which is leaves the downpipe is still higher than the top of the butt.
There's a simple rain diverter kit you can buy which fits onto the down pipe and when the butt is full, the water reverts to going straight down the pipe to prevent the butt overflowing. You can get them from most hardware shops and they only cost a few pounds.
Dorcas, that's what I've got, but it does affect the flow rate going into the butt quite significantly when it's raining hard.