You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
not sure if this is the right place for this question but I finally bought a rain barrel - 40 gallons i think.
i wanted to place it under the drain sprout at the back of our home. We'd have to cut the existing pipe, attach a 'S' shape for all to drain into barrel.
Hon says No. Hon wants to keep the drain as it is now but add a piece to angle upwards.
So the water goes down to the usual ground level but then goes up then down again into the barrel.
i dont think Hons idea is good. first im not sure gravity will "permit" water to just be averted upwards unless there is extreme pressure like a very heavy torrential down pour. then i worry about debris collecting at the lower level causing clogging and backing up of water too.
need some advise about all of this
- before Hon does it their way, we get problems and me and the rain barrel get blamed!
I'd take your option over his--definitely better to have gravity helping you out the whole way. But there may be an even better way--how I would do it is there are attachments you can buy where you cut out a part in the middle of your downspout and insert this piece that has a diverter that will divert water to the rainbarrel until it gets full, then when the barrel is full the water goes back down the drain where it always used to go (you'll be surprised how fast your barrel fills up, so you definitely need some sort of backup plan for when it fills up). Here's an example of what I'm talking about, the catalog explains it better than I do! http://www.gardeners.com/Downspout-Diverter/Watering_RainBar...
I would have to agree that angling it up is probably not going to work.
From my experience all down spouts have some kind of seam at ground level that angles the spout outward and away from the property. Now, if you are using a totally sealed off system it could work, but if not, you will put a lot of stress on those seams and they will ultimately break or an amount of water is going to seep through those and not consistently take the water away from your house. Taking the water away from the house is the most important thing as it can damage the foundation.
In all the applications I've seen, you cut the spout and the water drops into the barrel. I would say stick with this design. Then you wont have water stuck in the pipe breeding bacteria and bugs until the next rain fall...
Sending a pic of my rain collection pipe. Hope you can see that it goes from gutter, down to bottom of pipe. After the pipe fills, the overflow goes across to my tank.
