gutters / rain run off?

[Sigarms]

Having gutters being put on the house for the first time (house built late eighties, been here three years now).

House sits on a slope.

I'm going to have five drain spouts coming down on the side of the house (two in back, three in front).

The roof is large, and I realize that now I will be concentrating all of that rain run off in certain areas (coming down those down spouts, and where it comes down from the spouts, it will want to run down hill on the side of the house.

Worried about what erosion (sp?) may occur, perhaps heavy depending on the rain.

First thought was to tie the spouts into some buried PVC and just run it down hill to the back of the property. However, after thinking about it, I have a LP line buried on the left side of the house, and more than a couple of electrical and water lines buried on the right side of the house (I didn't put them there, but through trial and error, I know the general area and had to access one water line). This may be a big problem with trying to burry anything now going on the side of the house to the back.

However, we already use a water barrel (Jacks Rain Barrels from my wifes home state of Vermont). This got me to thinking.

Could I place a rain barrel (55 gallon) under each spout? The rain barrel has the 5/8 hose fitting to connect a garden hose to. What I was thinking was that if I was getting a VERY heavy rain, I could just tie a garden hose to all of the rain barrels and run the hose to the back of the house, may be a little more than I want to spend for the hoses and barrels, but probably less expensive than rental and time and trying to avoid any mistakes digging (and perhaps still hitting something anyway)

What I don't know is if I'm wasting my time.

All of the water run off lines that I may put on the barrels (via hose) will be run off gravity going down hill, no problem. However, since I don't know how much water I can get with those five spouts, I was wondering if I get a heavy rain if the water barrels will just fill up to quick and that the hose will not be able to drain the water barrel quick enough, and the barrel will just overflow with water anyway and I still may have a drainage issue to deal with in heavy rains.

Wife would like the gutters. Have had issues with some of the siding and fascia without them (gutters) over the three years we've been here.

Picture is from the front left side of the house. One down spout coming down on the left front corner of the house, another on the left post that supports the overhead roof over the door, and another on the right side of the house next to the garage (which you can't see). The other two spouts will be on both corners of the house in the back. Hard to tell from the picture, but from the corner of the house, starts to slope on a pretty good angle going down the back.

Keep in mind, the hoses wouldn't be kept on the barrels, only put on the barrels if we were supposed to get a good steady downpour to help drain the barrels.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Am I wasting my time in my thinking?

Any advice?

Thanks.

 

[reb]

Some quick mental calculations. As I recall, there are about 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot. 1" of rain on 1000 square feet of roof would then yield approximately 625 gallons. You can use these estimates to decide whether 55 gallon drums are practical for rain gathering. I decided they were impractical for me.

 

[Sigarms]

You're probably right. Now I'm wondering how much those garden hoses would help. However, I'm thinking not by much.

Just don't want to dig, the biggest portion of the roof is on the right side, and thats the side most everything is burried running out to the sheds.

Guess next thought would be to just hook up some of that big OD black flexible water pipe.

Any thoughts?

 

[Rara Avis]

Rainwater Harvesting Guide

 

[EddieWalker]

I don't think a garden hose, or even several of them, will be able to handle the water overflow. I think that even a light rain will overwhelm them and the barrels will be overflowing rather quickly, and create a wet area next to your house that will just start some new issue down the road.

The piping would be ideal. You can always tie them togehter with four in lines and then just dig one ditch in the front and back for a 6 inch line. You also don't need to be all that deep since it's a lawn and not a road that you will be driving acros. Mine are just 6 inches deep right next to my house and I run over them on a regular basis with my 4,000 pound CUT all the time.

Another option is to spread out the water as it comes out the downspout and then just let it run across yoru lawn. Gravel is great for this as it slows down the water and spreads it out. It's the same principle as rip-rap on lakes and rivers. It will stop the erosion. You just need to make it big enough to handle the water. Of course the downside is that it might not be attractive unless you do it all around the house, or make a garden type area of it.

Eddie

 

[VABlue]

As said, piping is the only way to go. Honestly, would you go out every single time it rains to set up temporary hoses? And then go out again to remove them? Each time it rains?

The PVC pipes only need to be a few inches deep going across the yard. Run everything from the right side of the house around the foundation and tie them into a bigger pipe on the left side for the actual buried run out to a ditch. You have plenty of vegetation around your house to effectively hide the black pipe above ground - especially with a little mulch thrown on top. Then just bury what needs to go over the yard. It's simple, cheap, and effective. One day of work and you'll never have to worry about it again...

 

[Tororider]

If you want to keep and use the water, you could get a bundle with just a little rain with that size roof. You could run pipes/tubes (I agree with Eddie that hoses won't cut it, but the stuff you need shouldn't be too hard to find at a big box), to a larger tank. Especially if you have gravity working for you. Check craigslist and ebay, I was able to find a 425 gallon tank for under $150. Now that sized tank wouldn't take long to fill with any type of rain, but you get the idea.

Btw, there are way more people here that have far more info than I do, but that is kind of what I am looking to do in the near future. 55 gallon barrels aren't cutting it.

 

[dmccarty]

I hate gutters. Lots of work if near trees and point flooding from the downspouts. Our city house had them and it was all I could do to leave them in place.

Our new house does not have the infernal things. 55 gallons would over flow in a decent rain very quickly. We have a couple roof valleys and the rain can look like the water out of a firehose in a good rain. We wish we could cistern that water but the numbers both in water volume and money to contain same is too large. We have just landscaped with lots of gravel and mulch/planting beds to distribute the water away from the house. Works and its pretty cheap, realitively permenant, and easy to maintain.

We had a major problem with rain run off on one side of the house due to the lay of the land. A couple of acres of water would runoff towards the house. The house was kinda an island. After we finally extended the driveway behind the house it acted as a levy to move the water in a different direction. I had ditched uphill with the box blade which helped but the additional height of the drivway really solved the problem. I had been afraid I was going to have to trench in a pipe and drains from one side of the house to the other. By watching the water flow and doing some simple landscaping we have solved 95% of the problem. The other 5% will be solved when we take out some grass and extend a planting bed.

If I had replaced the gutters in the old house it was going to be with the product that has slats to disburse the water from the roof. The product was supposed to spray the rain water and keep it from sheeting down on the plants and landscaping. No real gutter and no downspouts to clog.

Our outside trim is all Azec(sp) which is plastic. No rot to worry with anymore.

Later,
Dan

 

[Matt_W]

My house is 42 X 38 half of that 42 feet portion is cut in half by a peak in the middle so 1/4 of my roof runs into a 55 gallon whiskey barrel with a rain gutter diverter so I can switch from barrel to dry well. The overflow out of the rain barrel is a 1/2 inch hose that dumps back into the dry well. When it rains hard that barrel fills in under 30 minutes and then begins to push back out the top because of the small overflow. I can always just flip my diverter to bypass it but would never rely on leaving it un-attended.
amazing how much water comes off the roof.

 

[Sigarms]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Yes, in retrospect, a couple of barrels and 5/8 hose was a, well, for lack of better term, plain dumb on my end after thinking about it.

However, ever has your wife really want something and let you know it? Well, this was a first for me. Actually had the gutters put on today and I just have to look at my options now (lucky for me I called the guy yesterday, came out, and ended up calling me last night telling me he could do it today). Can't complain about the cost however.

Eddie and VABlue, I agree, piping would be the best way to go, however on my end, I sincerely think it's easier said than done.

Eddie was talking about I think the 6 pipe, and VA mentioned PVC. Do you think that 3 PVC would handle the load (I'll need to check later), or we're you thinking of a larger pipe diameter?

The only nice thing is that the roof is broken down into sections with 5 downspouts. Three of them I may not have an issue with as far as piping (the gas line may be a problem, but I could twin the front left two on the house to a french drainage ditch about 30 to the left going downhill), and one other may be a pain, however, the largest section of the roof by far is going to be my worst nightmare.

It's on the right side of the house.

This is where I have multiple electric lines and least two water lines, one being tubing, the other being 2" PVC. All of these lines are running perpendicular to where I need to run this rain water line, and I"ll be going to be coming up on them, which may produce more headaches. On top of that, I have multiple trees (roots) to deal with.

My thinking is that if I want to burry the pipe, I'll need to go at least seventy yards behind the house to be able to break the pipe into the open on an embankment.

Now, 6" deep with 6" pipe puts me at least 12 down. Good time to do it, but just had back surgery, and waiting later on, with that good hard N.C clay, that is a task I really don't feel doing by hand. I'll also have the tree roots to deal with as well as those other underground lines. Yes, I could just rent some machinery to make life easy; however, there is still one electrical line and one water line that may surprise me.

EDIT: I forgot to add that in the past, I've found by mistake that some of the lines I would of burried at least 3' deep, were actually a lot shallower.

We will be however picking up so stone for the driveway at the end of this winter, which makes me think of the possibility of just laying stone around the whole house to work with the drainage.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This is the biggest problem, however a question which may make it the easiest down spout to with labor wise.

The first pic is of the front right side of the house that has the most roof surface area, which will also get the most water. Going down that hill is those buried lines and trees. You'll notice that I put in a gravel walkway to the steps to a side door I put in on the garage. This was because this area got to muddy always using the stairs during heavy rains.

If you notice, the spout comes off right in front of our driveway. Well, for the last 18 years, the rain has just been coming off the roof and falling on the driveway (causing some issues that wanted my wife to get the gutters). The guy who did the work left me numerous pieces and elbows for me to work with the downspout termination. Well, this again may be a stupid idea, but what about running a 3 section right back out onto the driveway? Or would the concentrated area of water run off cause me more issues to deal with? I'm figuring if this is where the water was going anyway

Or I could just fill in the area with stone (between the driveway and house) and work my way down the side of the house.

The second pic is standing behind the house looking up to the driveway. This gives you an idea of what I'm looking at. You can also notice another drain spout on the left top corner of the house, with the downspout coming literally right behind the stairs up to the second deck.

I might add it will almost be impossible (IE money not worth it) to tie more than two drain spouts together. I have the driveway in front of the house, and I have deck steps in the back of the house that goes all the way to another deck.

Dosen't look like we'll be having any real major rain, so I have time, but again, since you may have a better idea now, and more suggestions?

And yes Dan, if it were up to me, I probably of wouldnn't have gotten the gutters; however this was a no brainer for my wife, so now we have them

Thanks.