Water butt diverter help

[Cp62]

I’ve had a garden room built and the builder has added guttering and a down pipe, but not connected it to any sort of drain/soakaway. I had composite decking built around the garden room and the down pipe currently just empties onto that. The builder said they tell customers to install a water butt (unfortunately he did not mention this until near the end by which time the build was nearly completed and too late to add any additional drainage without major hassle).

Having now looked at water butts, the diverters obviously are designed to funnel water into the butt until it is full and then the remaining water continues down the drain. I need all the water to go into the water butt. Is there any sort of diverter/adapter that can be added to down pipe that would do this? I’ve seen examples where a big hole is cut in the top of the water butt and some sort of elbow is attached to the pipe which leads directly into the pipe sized hole. However, I’m not that handy and want to avoid having to cut the holes myself. I’ve found a model by Polytank which I really like the look of and comes with pre cut holes for connecting the diverter hose that comes with it. Is there some way I could adapt the diverter or another way to connect the down pipe to the hose so all the water goes to the butt? The down pipe is a 68mm round one. Are the hoses that come with diverters a standard size?

I’d add an overflow hose to the water butt to then divert the water elsewhere in the garden if the water butt fills up. There are 2 pre drilled holes, one on either side of the Polytank model so assume that would work? I assume if I just fitted the diverter as instructed, then when the water butt fills up some of the water would go to the overflow hose and some would spill back to the down pipe?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[scbk]

Just run the down pipe straight in to the water butt.

Is the butt/barrel going to sit on the decking, and is it strong enough to take the weight?

Also worth fitting a better tap, the standard water butt taps tend to be very slow

 

[Tigercubrider]

You can also run the diverter into blue mdpe pipe and off to a butt.
Then fit an overflow to the butt so that any excess water will drain off while the diverter is still able to deliver.

 

[Cp62]

Just run the down pipe straight in to the water butt.

Thanks for the reply scbk. I was hoping to avoid having to cut any holes into the water butt as I’m really not very handy. The Polytank model I like already has pre cut holes for the diverter hose so I was hoping there would be a way to use that.

Is the butt/barrel going to sit on the decking, and is it strong enough to take the weight?

I hadn’t considered the weight so I’ll have to check that out.

Thanks.

 

[Cp62]

You can also run the diverter into blue mdpe pipe and off to a butt.
Then fit an overflow to the butt so that any excess water will drain off while the diverter is still able to deliver.

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I don’t know much about this and need stuff explained in layman’s terms! What difference would the blue mdpe pipe make?

Thanks.

 

[Tigercubrider]

The blue pipe is bendy and the correct diameter (most likely)
It allows you to relocate the water butt to a different area and link up to your down pipe.
It’s more rugged than hose pipe and can be buried.

You can play around with excess pipe to position the water butt height equal to the diverter.
If the water butt top outlet is lower than the inlet it can link to another butt or be allowed to overflow onto flower beds.

 

[Cp62]

The blue pipe is bendy and the correct diameter (most likely)
It allows you to relocate the water butt to a different area and link up to your down pipe.
It’s more rugged than hose pipe and can be buried.

You can play around with excess pipe to position the water butt height equal to the diverter.
If the water butt top outlet is lower than the inlet it can link to another butt or be allowed to overflow onto flower beds.

Thanks for explaining. Will look into it.