Want to collect more rainwater...how?

[garmcqui]

Hi, I've been collecting rainwater from my garage and shed roofs for several months now, but not being very large surfaces it takes ages for my water butts to fill. And with weekly washing of cars, watering plants, they are quickly depleting. So I'm trying to find a practical yet discreet way to collect the water from my house roof also. Here's a few pics of the layout:

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• garmcqui
• 7 Jun 2015
• 1

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• garmcqui
• 7 Jun 2015
• 1

As you can see, the location of the downpipe on the house isn't ideal to keep a water butt there. Is there an easy way I can direct the water from that downpipe over across onto the garage roof so it can be collected in the butts on the other side of the garage?

This is the current setup to the left of the garage, where there is a small gap between our garage and next door's garage where I can hide the butts (currently 3 but I plan to add more).

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• garmcqui
• 7 Jun 2015
• 1

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• garmcqui
• 7 Jun 2015
• 1

Any ideas appreciated!

 

[r896neo]

You could simply add an elbow to your downpipe up level with the window and bend it towards the garage roof and discharge it there. it the simplest if not terribly elegant solution.

If you do go for it discharge it onto a small sheet of lead flashing tucked under a tile to make sure the rush of water doesnt push up under the roof tiles.

 

[garmcqui]

Thanks for the reply. Yes that is what I thought would be the easiest method, however the wife is not so keen on the look.

An alternative that I was thinking of was an ordinary rainwater diverted fitted to the house down pipe just above the top of the water butt, with 15m of 1" flexible pipe running from it down into the ground, below the grass and up into the top of the water butt. The pipe would be full of water most of the time, but any additional water going into it from the diverted would push some up into the water butt (due to water finding its own level at both ends of pipe).

Would that work?