Towards the end of yesterday afternoon, it rained a lot, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning. In fact, it came down so hard and heavy (weather reports suggest a month’s worth of rain in one sitting) that I thought ought to brave the elements and check on my water capture system. As expected it was full and I was pleased to see water making the run from the primary collection near the house to the addition water butt in the far bit of the garden which finally overflows into the canal. However, the hosepipe wasn’t keeping up with the flow level so I needed to switch to the larger bore pipe that does the long run and goes straight to the canal.

The downside of that is that it presently involves unscrewing the tap the hose was connected to and screwing in the large bit of hose that connects to the outflow pipe. That’s easy enough but not when the system is completely full, it is dark and water is pounding down. I managed it but it would have been very difficult if I’d dropped the rubber ring that creates a proper seal on the outlet.

However, once inside and drying off, I had a brainwave. Why not create a second hole, higher than the tap and hose outlet which goes directly to the pipe? Yes, this is what would be called an overflow and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I will look into that this week and hopefully save myself having to venture outside on cold, wet evenings in future to attend to the system.