Top fill water butt

barker77

I have a down pipe that comes off a shed that I would like to put a water butt under. There is a water butt there already but it’s really old and I think the previous owner just cut a hole in the lid to make it work. The water butt just overflows making the shed damp - something I want to stop. Most water butts I’ve seen have attachments to the downpipe which I could do but I’m worried water will still come out the bottom of the Downpipe (which goes straight into the ground rather than in a drain.

I was then planning to use the connectors from the water but to connect a hosepipe so that when it gets full I can drain the water but at the back of some trees automatically . Hoping that makes some sense, grateful for advice and links to water butts that can be top fed if that’s even a thing?! 

QrizB

Yes, I had a top-fed water butt for a while (it split in the frost a couple of years ago and I've yet to replace it).

If you look at one of these:
https://www.diy.com/departments/ward-210l-water-butt/405866_BQ.prd

... you'll see mouldings in the lid that you can cut out to accommodate your downpipe.

Then I drilled a hole in the side of the butt, just below the rim, and fitted one of these:

https://www.diy.com/departments/floplast-solvent-weld-straight-waste-tank-connector-dia-21-5mm/178484_BQ.prd

... then glued in a length of this to take the overflow away:

https://www.diy.com/departments/floplast-white-solvent-weld-waste-pipe-l-3m-dia-21-5mm/109187_BQ.prd

You can probably make it (or something like it) work for your application, too.

Reed_Richards

I personally had concluded that top entry water buts had ceased to exist; I'm glad I am wrong.  However in heavy rain it is unlikely that any side-exit overflow will have sufficient bore to cope with the rate at which the water comes down the down-pipe so you will have to put up with occasional overflows.      

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

I personally had concluded that top entry water buts had ceased to exist; I'm glad I am wrong.  However in heavy rain it is unlikely that any side-exit overflow will have sufficient bore to cope with the rate at which the water comes down the down-pipe so you will have to put up with occasional overflows.      

Agreed; it will depend on the size of the shed!

A typical 6' x 8' shed has an area of 4.3 square metres; in "violent" rain of 60mm/hr (1mm/min) you're looking at it catching 4.3 litres a minute, which a 20mm overflow pipe should be able to cope with.

In the OP's case, if he's using 12mm bore garden hose it might struggle.

barker77

It’s only one half of the shed roof it collects - i have an old water butt connected to it. Sorry to be simple but would you be able to recommend what drill bit I’d need to drill the hole and ideally I’d need a flexible pipe vs a rigid one so grateful for recommendations for that too please ?