Water butt diverting

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Manchester
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Hi.
I was hoping someone maybe able to help with a problem I'm having with diverting water from butt 1 to butt 2. Butt 1 is at the front of the house next to the drain pipe and butt 2, which holds more water, is located in my back garden as its out of the way. I don't have a drain pipe in my back garden, so I've drilled an outlet hole into butt 1 and connected a hosepipe from butt 1 to butt 2.
The problem I'm having is that when butt 1 fills to the outlet level it trickles if at all in to butt 2. But, if I remove the hose from b2 and walk near to b1 and lower it, let the water run, then reconnect to b2 it comes through faster until it goes below the outlet level in b1. So when it then fills up again, I have to repeat the process again. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? The butts are approx 5 metres apart. I can take pics if needed
Thanks in advance.

(Sorry it's long winded!)
 
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not sure i follow all the details, but in my experience the easiest way to move water around is with a siphon (just the hose will do for the siphon). this relies on the top/overflow of the butts being at the same height, and i can't tell if that is possible in your situation: i don't know if it's on much of a slope for instance. a siphon would mean that the water level in the two butts is always the same in 'absolute' terms: they will be the same level regardless of how much of the butt is filled. another nice thing about them is that whichever butt you use water from will immediately be filled by water from the other butt (though the filling would be quite slow if the water level hadn't changed much).

to make the siphon, put the hose in one butt and let it fill with water. put your thumb over one end and lift that end out of the water with the other end at the bottom of the butt. thumb still on the end, take it to the other butt. put the hose well down in the water butt and release thumb. you should now be happily syphoning (even if it doesn't look like anything is happening). it might take a few tries and there are other ways of filling the hose e.g. coil the hose, block one end, fill it from a tap, then remove the tap and block the other end.

wrathkeg
 
Fit the hose pipe to butt 1 at the overfill level and connect to butt 2 to its lowest level.

So when butt 1 is full it will then fill butt 2. Also have an overflow from butt 2 (highest level) to go onto the soil.

Andy
 
Assuming both butts are at approximately the same level then I'd connect both as close to their bottoms as possible.

That way, the water level in each would always remain the same - just as with a syphon - but there'd be no chance of getting an airlock or losing the syphon effect unless the water butts were emptied completely.

Alternatively, if they're only 5m apart then you could fill them independently from the same downspout using a rainwater diverter and a "Y" connector to split the supply between the two.
 
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What you describe is a siphoning action hence it stops when butts empty.You can't use hose to connect the two if they are the same height you need a rigid overflow pipe.
 

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