Water Butts: what to do when your diverter is too low.

I had a question from Vernon today - "Hi, Vernon!" - about water butts, which came in via this article, catchily entitled Water Butt - Fail! which dealt with a few of the  problems encountered when installing water butts.

I am, by the way, about two thirds of the way through a new book, all about water management in the garden, but I keep getting distracted by questions, and by the other four half-finished books which I am currently working on (Wildflower meadows, Tree ID in Summer, Photography in the Garden, and New Garden, New Gardener.....), but one day I'll finish it, one day...

Anyway, Vernon wrote:

"I am trying to connect a new water butt to an existing rainwater pipe system. Unfortunately with the water butt on its base the inlet hole is exactly the same level as the y junction on the rainwater pipe system connecting the pipes from the guttering on the front and back of my shed. I therefore cannot fit the diverter at the level." 

Now, I can't find a diagram or photo to illustrate this, but I can visualise exactly what Vernon has - one run of guttering along each side of the shed, meeting round the back or the side, in a Y-junction, then going downwards.

Because all junctions have to be lower than the gutters, and because rainwater diverters normally have to be fitted to an upright pipe, this means that by the time there is space on the pipe for the diverter, it's too low for the water butt.

 Here's a diagram:

This illustrates the basic principles: you fix the diverter to the downpipe, then run the connecting hose straight across into the water butt inlet.

The water butt has to be up on a stand, otherwise you can't get a watering can underneath it, which is maddening.

So when fitting a new water butt,  you start by positioning the empty butt on the stand, make sure that the tap is facing outwards (don't laugh, I've seen it done...), then the height of the inlet dictates where the diverter has to be fixed, on the downpipe.

Fix the diverter too low, and the water won't be able to run uphill to the inlet, and the butt won't fill. 

Fix the diverter too high, and the excess water won't "run back" along the connecting hose, which means that the butt will constantly overflow, so there will be water all over the place: mud and moss all around: general deterioration of the path/concrete/hard standing/foundations, and possibly the end of the world.

So you can see how important it is, to get the diverter at the "right" height.

By the way, if you inherit a water butt with the diverter too high, and you can't bear the thought of having to remove the diverter, cut the downpipes, move the diverter, mend the downpipes... then a quick and easy fix is to empty the butt, then raise it up, by putting some concrete slabs under the stand, until the inlet hole is at the right height. 

If this leaves the watering can a long way below the tap, it's easy enough to attach a short length of garden hose to the tap, to prevent splashing - as per this picture, right.

In this case, the stand was a wee bit too high for the watering can, but the real problem was that the tap was a really splashy one, it just would not send out a nice neat flow of water, no matter if I had it fully open, half open, three-quarters open: so in the end I added the hose to avoid wasting water, and getting wet hands. And wet feet.

Back to the plot - you can see how important it is to get the diverter at the correct height, and you can also see that the position of the water butt inlet forces you to put the diverter at a certain height, relative to the butt.

Vernon's problem is that he doesn't have a nice long, straight run of downpipe like that: he is taking water from a shed, so it's only one story high: the gutters are probably only about head height anyway, as most sheds are not particularly tall: and because he has two lines of guttering joining together, the joiner and the subsequent down pipe are too low for his water butt.

However, there are a couple of options!

Option 1:

The most obvious, and possibly the easiest (but least satisfactory) is to fit the diverter below the Y-junction, and to make a new inlet hole in the butt, at the "correct" level. 

The downside of this option is that the water butt will never fill right up to the top:

 

Excuse the roughness of this diagram, I did a hasty cut'n'paste to show what I meant, on the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, and you guys would all die of boredom if I spent a thousand words trying to describe this situation...

Imagine, if you'd be so kind, that instead of a long down pipe, we have Vernon's  two gutters, joined together, which means he can only fit his diverter underneath the join.

As you can see, if  you fit the diverter lower than the inlet hole, then the butt will only fill up to the point where the diverter sends the water in.

Plus, you have the interesting task of creating a new inlet hole in the butt: they are easy enough to drill into, you just need a gadget called a "tank cutter" which fits onto your normal drill, and which cuts out a neat circle.  However, the manufacturers make water butts with a nice flat panel at the top, perfect for drilling and fixing, whereas lower down, they are usually ribbed or fluted for extra strength, which means it's less easy to drill a neat hole, and much less easy to get a good seal around the inlet fixing - it usually requires some silicon sealant, and a bit of huffing and puffing. 

However, needs must when the devil drives, as they say, and if you only have one option for the placement of  your diverter, then the butt will have to have a new hole in it.

As I said, the butt will never fully fill up, but at least it will fill as far as it can: you will still be getting free water, you will still be able to get the watering can under the tap, it's better than nothing, and it's fairly easy to do. 

UPDATE: Vernon has kindly sent me a photo of his guttering: 

There you go, pretty much as described: the diverter has to be fitted immediately below that Y-junction - I've drawn it in, in green.

I've then drawn a line along the brickwork to show approximately where the level of the diverter will be - and you can see by the line on the water butt, that it is quite a bit lower than the place on the butt where the inlet/overflow connector is designed to be situated, which is visible as an indented flat area, just above my green circle, which is there to indicate roughly where the new hole will have to be drilled.

It could be worse - it could be right slap bang across that strengthening band! As it is, I think Vernon should be able to cut a new hole just above the thicker band, and with luck, the connector will sit flush to the side of the butt. As mentioned, silicon sealant often comes into play, if  you have to position a connector anywhere other than the "standard" position.

Right, so much for Option 1:  

Option 2:

Get a different shaped water butt. Instead of an "upright" one, get a rectangular tank, more like the shape of an old cold-water tank, or a trough: you can buy pretty much anything, these days.  This will mean that you can still put it up on a stand, but the top of it will be a lot lower than the top of a normal shaped butt, so you should easily be able to get it low enough to fit below the Y-junction.

Downsides: you will have to build a stand for it, as it probably won't arrive with one: and it will have to be sturdy, because water is heavy.. A neat stack of bricks, dry-laid in a criss-cross pattern, at each corner will probably work, if it's a metal tank: if it's plastic, then you will need some sort of rigid base of wood or metal to run underneath it, to prevent sagging.

As a side issue, talking of sagging, one of my dearly beloved Clients recently moved their large water butt, and was horrified to find that the bottom of it had sagged and moulded itself to the shape of the three plastic "legs" which comprised the (rather cheap) stand which was supplied with it. We all looked at it, eyebrows raised, and we could all envisage it breaking, one day, not too far in the future.. so we found an offcut of marine plywood, super-strong, and cut it to the shape of the base of the butt. This was carefully positioned on the three plastic "legs", and then we put the water butt back on top. 

It wobbled, like a weeble. 

My Clients looked at me, with huge, fear-filled eyes. "Oh no!" they said, in chorus. "It's ruined!"

"Fear not," I replied, sturdily. "Let's fill it with water, and see if the weight will compress it back to the proper shape." 

Long story made short: yes, it did. The base of the butt re-formed itself under the pressure of the weight of the water, and now conforms to the flat plywood base. And hopefully, it will now last for many years!

Back to the plot:

Option 3:

Fit two water butts, one to each gutter. Take off the joining sections, and the Y-junction altogether, and put one butt at the end of each run of guttering. Twice as much free water! Yay! 

There are two sub-options here, depending on how much you want to faff about with guttering and down-pipes: either fit a downpipe and then a diverter to each run of guttering, moving the "join" and the Y-junction lower down, below the level of the two diverters.

 Or, fit one butt with a diverter to the original downpipe - now you will be able to fit it sufficiently high, as the Y-junction is gone - and for the second butt, just run the gutter straight into it, using a short length of down-pipe in through the hole in the top.  Most water butts have a moulded circular place, usually in the lid, where you can easily cut out a round hole,  using a Stanley knife.

I can hear you drawing breath to say "Ah, but what about the overflow? Surely it will just fill up then spill over..." .

Indeed! All you need to do is use the overflow outlet of the second water butt: they have them, pre-drilled, usually with a black, blanking plug already installed, and most water butts come with a joining kit which is simply a connector which screws into that hole, and a short length of corrugated pipe.  (If they don't, you can easily buy just the connectors.)  Pull out the plug, insert the connector, then push the hosepipe onto the outside of the connector. Run this hosepipe down to the drain.

Or, if you are feeling in a Heath-Robinson sort of mood, you can connect the two butts together using the overflow outlet on each one, and a length of hosepipe (assuming that the corrugated joiner kit pipe is too short...) which means that as butt number two fills to the overflow point, the water will run over to water butt number one, and will then disappear down the diverter.

This can be a good scheme if one side of the roof gets a lot more rain than the other: but you have to support the hose which connects them, otherwise it will droop in the middle. You can use some brackets, screwed to the shed: or you can fix up a shallow shelf for the hose to lie along.  

Hopefully, Vernon, one of these suggestions will either be the right one for you, or will give you an idea as to how best to tackle your particular problem. Do send photos!!

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