Guttering

[Croolis]

Yes, it's more shed stuff.

I've never installed guttering or had to think about it in my life. I've decided my new shed needs it. I want to be as cheapskate as possible. There's an old people's home behind my shed. The nearest building is 30 feet away across grass.

I have a fence (I didn't build this), there's a funny little no man's land about a foot or so wide, then another fence for the old folks' home. Nothing but weeds etc growing in the space between the fences. I'm thinking I could pipe the water from the shed over my fence (the gap is ~half a metre bewteen shed and my fence) and just let it drain into the no man's land. Not even bother with a downpipe, just let it flow out and fall couple metres to the ground in there.

Is this a shockingly bad and mardy thing to do? Will it hurt anything? I mean, I wouldn't dream of putting it straight into anyone's garden of course, but there really is nothing down there. Would it trash the fence? Typical wooden fence panels with the concrete base thing at the bottom.The shed is 10ft by 8ft with an apex roof, so two pipes going over the fence.

If I'm not putting it over the fence, I've got to downpipe it to the ground by my shed and/or water butt it, which I really don't want to do. Pricing this up, I'd be up to 100 quid plus on bloody plastic pipe grr.

Thoughts?

 

[ChaiLatte]

A pragmatic approach would be to do as you suggest and go outside with an umbrella next time it rains to monitor the situation. That would tell you if anything bad is happening and if adding a downpipe would help.

As you say, water falling two metres is going to make a bit of a splash so the effect of that is what you have to assess. As an outside possibility, could you make a pebbled area in the drop zone (bit of landscape fabric under the pebbles), which would attenuate the deluge and stop any rebound?

 

[Croolis]

I shall do that, thank you. I'm seeing cheap second hand guttering and water butts online so I might be able to just do that for a fraction of the cost. Do water butts in the UK fill up in a single downpour with a 10ft x 8ft roof? Presumably one gets rid of the water by just squirting it around the garden. Seems like a ball ache. Never owned one, never thought about one .

 

[ChaiLatte]

Do water butts in the UK fill up in a single downpour with a 10ft x 8ft roof?

There is an average UK rainfall chart here:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weathe...-weather/rain/how-much-does-it-rain-in-the-uk

Daily data (not from your area) here:

http://nw3weather.co.uk/wxdataday.php

10' x 8' is about 3 x 2.4 = 7.2 square metres. On the above, the largest daily rainfall was 31mm, so that would be a volume of about 225 litres. That is a little over a standard 45 gallon (205 litre) oil drum.

I wonder if you drilled a small hole in the water butt whether it could then drain down gradually over a period of time. Then it would act as a buffer, stopping peak flows doing any damage but not requiring any input from you. Possibly a wick in a larger hole would stop a small hole getting blocked by debris.

Edit: old guttering can lose a bit of plasticity due to UV exposure, so go easy when fitting it. Warming with a hair dryer or heat gun can help it slip into the clips.

 

[dizjasta]

Do ground conditions allow for the construction of a "soakaway" on your property for dispersal of rainwater?

 

[Croolis]

Do ground conditions allow for the construction of a "soakaway" on your property for dispersal of rainwater?

I've looked at that stuff, seems to require large holes to do properly. Soil is typical loamy soil that we have so often in UK. But I've only got a space half a metre wide between back of shed and fence (same at the sides of shed as well in fact). Was sort of thinking that a soakaway that close to the fence wouldn't help it much, but I also know nothing about drainage .

 

[Richard_C]

Here's an idea.

Dig a hole, fill it with gravel/old bricks etc., as a diy quasi-soakaway (proper ones are very deep) put a couple of blocks on it and mount a water butt. Run gutter into butt or butts - I found some slimline 100 litre ones that you could buy as a pair for little more than just one.

In dry season leave the butt tap(s) closed, you have a useful supply for the garden. In winter/wet season open the tap just a little. Water will dribble out and run away into the ground doing no damage. Normal state of butt is empty. If you get a downpour the water goes into the mostly empty butt faster than it goes out, the butt acts as a delay converting downpour into a trickle.

I do something similar with one of my water butts, rather than water going back into the downpipe when it is full I have an extra pipe leading from the same level as the input hole to a small wildlife pond. The overflow goes to the pond and on the rare occasion it fills to the max it simly runs out over a wide area. Since I've done it Ive never had to refill the pond except in one very long dry spell.

A water butt is useful for all sorts of things. Living in a very hard water area I always found washing the cars a real pain - one black, one dark red - they always ended up streaky unless you quickly manually dried with a chamois. Now I just use a bucket of water butt water and rinse with a watering can of the same - no streaks, loads easier and quicker. One neighbour who asked me why I was watering the car believed me when I said, deadpan, I was hoping the car would grow because we never had enough room for luggage. He thinks I'm half crazy, I know he is gullible.

You might look at your local authority planning map, usually very detailed maps are online. Zoom in and it will show boundaries and often who is responsible for the fence - it may be that it's their land and they simply put an extra fence in for appearances, useful to know regardless of whether or not you plan to allow water to flow into it. Its probably better long term to have it all on yoru side, you have control and if the landowner does want to do anything with the strip you don't have to worry about it.

Also - speaking as an old(er) person I don't think you are supposed to call them "old peoples homes" any more

 

[Croolis]

There is an average UK rainfall chart here:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weathe...-weather/rain/how-much-does-it-rain-in-the-uk

Daily data (not from your area) here:

http://nw3weather.co.uk/wxdataday.php

10' x 8' is about 3 x 2.4 = 7.2 square metres. On the above, the largest daily rainfall was 31mm, so that would be a volume of about 225 litres. That is a little over a standard 45 gallon (205 litre) oil drum.

I wonder if you drilled a small hole in the water butt whether it could then drain down gradually over a period of time. Then it would act as a buffer, stopping peak flows doing any damage but not requiring any input from you. Possibly a wick in a larger hole would stop a small hole getting blocked by debris.

Edit: old guttering can lose a bit of plasticity due to UV exposure, so go easy when fitting it. Warming with a hair dryer or heat gun can help it slip into the clips.

That's very helpful, thank you. I see yer blue plastic tubs at 200L for £10 not far from me on FB Marketplace.

Here's an idea.

Dig a hole, fill it with gravel/old bricks etc., as a diy quasi-soakaway (proper ones are very deep) put a couple of blocks on it and mount a water butt. Run gutter into butt or butts - I found some slimline 100 litre ones that you could buy as a pair for little more than just one.

In dry season leave the butt tap(s) closed, you have a useful supply for the garden. In winter/wet season open the tap just a little. Water will dribble out and run away into the ground doing no damage. Normal state of butt is empty. If you get a downpour the water goes into the mostly empty butt faster than it goes out, the butt acts as a delay converting downpour into a trickle.

Also - speaking as an old(er) person I don't think you are supposed to call them "old peoples homes" any more

Yep, looks like doing something like that. Thank you.

I was going to call it an old g-i-ts home but I didn't want to be rude .