Problem. Overflowing box gutter on first floor, when it totally utterly torrentially rains (so pretty irregular and maybe 0-2 times a year), gutter system gets overwhelmed and creates a leak. (Extra downpipe already fitted)
Plan A
hole in side of gutter about 1” up from bottom (so lighter rain just uses normal downpipes).
In gutter have a large filter on end of a flexi pipe fixed to bottom of gutter
Flexi Pipe runs through the hole from gutter down to ground level. (So pipe lifts up about 1” or so from bottom of gutter to go through gutter but gutter is 3” deep or so overall )
FlexiPipe runs vertically down wall and is curved to nearly flat at bottom, at this bit fit a upside down T junction and at top of this T fit a one way air release valve,with the other bit feeding into a self priming water transfer pump (dab jet range look promising)
In box gutter fit a float switch,set to come on when say 2” of water in gutter, fitted to a timer relay so that it runs for 10 seconds minimum.
Concerns
- having seen a self priming pump in action it can be quite slow when dealing with air, idea with the pipe T bit with one way air release valve is that the pipe should be fully submerged in the gutter before pump runs and hopefully water should flow down pipe and air can get pushed out via the air release valve, so pump is having to deal with as little air as possible, so should work more quickly
- Not sure how well pump will deal with power bounce, hence 10 second relay (might mean pump does some dry running) and hopefully on and off a lot for 10 seconds will be ok but …..not sure
- Total Costs run at about £350, and I suspect I can’t return a used pump. pipe , filter and valve is maybe. £70 so could try that as a standalone to see if pipe fills when it rains, which if it did means that self priming should be ok.
- that it won’t work and I have a lightly used secondhand pump to sell
Comments, ideas, suggestions , …. Thanks
Will the filter get blocked with crud from the roof?
It sounds horribly complicated. Could you have a sump at gutter level to pump from?
Gutter is cleaned every year and access is easy (short ladder) , so I can keep an eye on that. Power is nearby, pump on ground so easy to install/ test etc. hole in gutter already exists. I can fit auto bilge pumps in gutter but, much more complicated wiring and install, harder to work with (testing etc) , originally I thought cheaper but add extra wiring, 12v dc transformer, junction box etc and it starts to even out , and I think lifting a filter out and cleaning is going to be easier than testing/cleaning the bilge pumps, transformer etc in situ. (And it feels less bodged to me)
You say you've already fitted an extra downpipe. I can't see how this (effectively another downpipe with a pump in it) is going to do any better.
Is it a volume thing (ie too much water to fit in the downpipes at once so it backs up and over tops the gutter?) If so, bigger or more downpipes.(Current downpipes definitely not blocked?) Or is it a flow thing (ie water not getting to the downpipes and sitting at the wrong end of the gutter and overtopping it there) If so change the angle to make it steeper, either the attachments, which i suspect will be a right pain with a box gutter or maybe some sort of very long wedge shaped thing in the bottom of it. Is it lined with lead or fibreglass?
got a picture?
its going to ge blocked. especially if the volume of water is too much for 2x downpipes
Can you get some photos ?
I'd be improving the downpipe arrangement before any pump solution. Can excess water be allowed to pour out in a safe location over a weir cutout?
I have 50m2 off roof the goes down half way, then into another gutter that does 2 sides of an single story off shoot. In thunder storm downpours a lot of the water doesn't make it round the 90 degree bend and cascades onto the ground or conservatory roof. It's a long way down the needs fixing list of jobs.
No it’s deffo clear, was up about a month ago, brushed out with a trowel, downpipe goes into hopper which is drilled at top so if downpipe is blocked it “should” flood out of the hopper via lots os holes. Other downpipe is into waterbutt, also drilled at top to allow quick overflow, it’s in a sort of L shape, so 2 large roof and one small. Did a dry day test, blocked gutters, filled with hoses and roughly same stain pattern as when its torrential, so I’m pretty sure it’s a flow thing, water coming off roofs quicker than the down pipes can flow, gutter fills up and overflows, so the pump is to pull out the extra water. I can’t change the gutter angles so I guess I need to increase output flow.
it overflows at O , downpipes at a and c, weir cutout at c.
That, to me, looks like it should have been built with a much bigger valley in-between the house and conservatory roofs.
Are the gutters smaller than 'normal' house gutters? They look like they might be.
(I also bet the fall isn't good enough to cope with a heavy downpour)
A-b 265 wide gutter
b-c. 165 wide
Widen the gutter, fix the faulty seal where it's leaking?
If your problem is excess water in then I can't picture what a pump is likely to do. You don't need to pull the water out, you need somewhere for it to go. No?
Presumably its the overtopping water that overtopsthe inside edge of the gutter and gets under the roof?
Notch the front of the gutter or cant the whole thing a few degrees to promote overtopping away from the roof and just accept that a few times a year its a bit splashier than normal? Gutter chains would help direct the flows a bit.
Where do the down pipes go, to a soak away? If so, is the soakaway over topping and restricting flow? This was my problem, I’d get water flowing out of the spigot between downpipe and drain. It was cement so unsealed, with a modern plastic connection with a gasket it probably wouldn’t be obvious.
And what is the fall on the gutters around the conservatory? As it’s leaking inside I think I’d overshoot the regular gutter straight over/through the hopper. Hole in base of gutter into hopper for regular rain, heavy rain would go straight over and just waterfall off into the garden.
1 downpipe goes to a hopper, (so it can overflow out of hopper ), the other to a water but (have drilled more holes at top of water but so it should never fill up enough to backup downpipe.
I was expecting the pump to pull water out of the gutter faster than a gravity flow, so effectively increasing downpipe capacity.
I can't see how a complicated pumped system is going to be better than a ~3" downpipe?
downpipe goes into hopper which is drilled at top so if downpipe is blocked it “should” flood out of the hopper via lots os holes. Other downpipe is into waterbutt, also drilled at top to allow quick overflow,
You're ignoring Bernoulli's theorem* in those. To accelerate a fluid you have to have a pressure difference (in this case the height), if you then stop the fluid you recover that pressure, minus frictional losses, minus losses through fittings. If the water has to come down a pipe, then all that energy is dissipated into a water butt or other container, then you expect it to accelerate again out of the overflow holes (now with no pressure/head it's just overflowing) you're massively reducing the capacity.
I'd reconfigure the downpipes so they go straight into adequately sized drains (or onto the ground, whatever's suitable), not into stagnant containers of water. Fit proper water butt kits to the downpipe that divert light rain only and let the rest pass straight through.
*for non engineers, consider that a jet washer is "140bar", that's 140x atmospheric pressure. The pressure in the hose is 140bar, the pressure as soon as it exists the nozzle is 1bar (it's in the atmosphere), but it's now traveling incredibly fast. Put your hand in front of it and it f****** hurts because you reduce the velocity back to zero and recover a lot of that 140bar of pressure. The downpipe works just the same way, except you've only got ~0.2 bar and your aim is maximum velocity (flowrate) not slowing it back down to zero at the end of the pipe.
Presumably its the overtopping water that overtopsthe inside edge of the gutter and gets under the roof?
Notch the front of the gutter or cant the whole thing a few degrees to promote overtopping away from the roof and just accept that a few times a year its a bit splashier than normal? Gutter chains would help direct the flows a bit.
Or that, just add a spout to the gutter so the overflow is taken away from the wall as much as possible.
If you have your gutter and downpipe sizes you can work out capacity, but as you mention the torrential downpours we are getting will likely overwhelm the system. So have weir at each end should help, but you still may not have enough for the 'flash' flood type situation, normally it would over-sail the gutters, but you have a glass roof in the way hence your issue! Not sure pumps will cope with flash type downpours. Is there enough room to add a larger gutter just below the roof tiles/slates, may be an ugly solution but you won't see it;) may need some roofing adaptation works, IF the falls are there? Tricky one!
Another vote for sorting flow of the guttering first - high flow/deep section guttering, with correct fall and clear downpipe/exit flow has to be better than any system relying on pumps and switches. And £350 buys you a fair bit of guttering!
And a pump that can carry more water than a guttering downpipe fed by gravity and full (clean) gutter above would be a pretty chonky pump. My submersible pump uses a way smaller bore outlet than my downpipes.
One potentially useful bit of info on the pump timing (if you decide to forge ahead despite all advice to the contrary :-D) is that you only need it on long enough to prime the syphon - then gravity will do the rest until the sump is empty/ empty enough for air to break the syphon.
Another vote for sorting flow of the guttering first - high flow/deep section guttering, with correct fall and clear downpipe/exit flow has to be better than any system relying on pumps and switches. And £350 buys you a fair bit of guttering!
And a pump that can carry more water than a guttering downpipe fed by gravity and full (clean) gutter above would be a pretty chonky pump. My submersible pump uses a way smaller bore outlet than my downpipes.
One potentially useful bit of info on the pump timing (if you decide to forge ahead despite all advice to the contrary :-D) is that you only need it on long enough to prime the syphon - then gravity will do the rest until the sump is empty/ empty enough for air to break the syphon.
Edit:
I can’t change the gutter angles so I guess I need to increase output flow.
Really? Is that because you cant get back there to access them? totally unreplaceable for ever?
‘Unreplaceable forever’ A - my skill set, b it’s a kit system that is all bolted together (each bit depends on the bit next to it) and anyway access is hideous.
various mods ‘appear’ to have reduced the issue, since the weir cutout it’s done it once (and that was a truly, truly, stunning rain day, garages across road (downhill drives) flooded, neighbours had a leak, the worst I’ve seen it. If it’s a one in 10 years that’s possibly liveable but 1 a year isn’t.
the weir cutout at photo c could be made bigger, a weir cutout could be added at photo a,
Room is very tight , esp between b and c but I did wonder if I could get a sort of custom wide v built gutter built that went under tiles (water ‘appears’ to go over the box edge and down between house/conservatory) then down on top of existing gutter and the up on the glass roof , tilted towards c and dropping into a hopper. (Or between a and b, which is much roomier, so a sort of two layer gutter system, if the top layer took all water from between a and b, gutter could probably deal with about 1/2 the roof area.
We had similar, but ours was two large roofs feeding into one looong run of gutter, with downpipe at one end.
I couldn't easily fit another downpipe and aoakaway, and besides which the house had a damp issue anyway.
I put a larger sized gutter on, a larger 'output' pipe, and at one end I cut into the end cap with a 'V' that enabled fast flow off end of gutter if the gutter was more that 1cm full of water. About 4 times a year it would erupt out from gutter - you wouldn't want to walk the path round the house, but it worked and stopped over topping gutters and damp down walls.
