Quote:
Originally Posted by mlmpetert
I was gonna post this in the global warming thread to go along with my garden stuff but it might fit better here, particularly after seeing buster’s diagram above. This is probably a good question for a plumber, contractor, civil engineer or physicist.
In Richmond city you get a tax credit if you have a rain barrel that diverts 50% of your roof water (also rain barrels save on watering costs and are good for the earth and all that stuff…..). The problem is I have no good spot to put one that can capture 50% of my roof water without making it ugly, less functional and cost prohibitive.
Unless I bottom fill the rain barrel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdg6Jwxb9bM
So my question is does the “overflow” have to be higher than the diverter?
If you top fill a rain barrel you can get diverters that shut off once the barrel is full and resume sending water through the gutter downspout. So in the youttube example if the overflow line was higher than the diverter would the barrel simply not fill? Or would it fill to the height of the diverter then back up the diverter line and into the downspout?
Ive looked on the internet pretty good for answers. Im wondering if you bottom fill, do you become forced into using the overflow as your new downspout, ie water always fills the rain barrel then goes out the overflow when in use. That there is effectively no operational shut off in the diverter (regardless of what diverter used)? |
That's how the system she has seems to work. I bet the city could tell you how big of a container you need to receive the tax credit. There is no way they can require you to conatain 50% of the rain fall on your roof. I'm guessing they require that 50% of the roof runs into a rain barrel of a certain size. The reason I think this is because what happens when we have a very heavy rain?