Today has been like that 1980’s Scottish band you may remember: wet, wet, wet (FWIW, the band is still going today – an impressive run). The trouble is that our water storage system is full up and, although it is flowing down to the point where excess rain water can overflow by the canal, it can’t keep up with heavy rain.

I’ve hit on a solution though. The system is fed by a pipe connected to the main house gutters, running over the top of the extension roof, spanning a short gap and then feeding along the gutter at the front of the shed. I took the very simple step of drilling a hole in the pipe. A spare pipe clip was enough to make most of the water coming out dribble into the gutter below (the original route) rather than flowing down the outside of the pipe and that seems to work as a solution. We still get some flow into the system but at a reduced rate.

Doesn’t that hamper future effectiveness? Only when we want that to be the case. As we start to drain down the water butts, we can simply rotate the pipe and reduce or prevent leakage. In the event of such heavy rain that water comes out even when the hole is on top, we probably won’t need to capture it all in any case. I will continue to monitor the situation but I think that may be the fix we need.