Correct Gullies / Traps / Hoppers for Rainwater System

[MortarThePoint]

Gullies or traps are essential if the rainwater joins the sewage system. That's not the case for me as it's a separate system going to a drainage ditch. I have shoes for the bottom of my downpipes.

 

Bottle gullies on first look seem like a good idea, but I have seen people elsewhere saying they aren't the right thing to use but with no clear justification. I know they can be expensive, but that's not the reason. I think it may be that the bottle gully would need to be right up against the brickwork, rather than having a hopper arrangement like Marley's UG47 which they proposed to use with a Marley UG44 trap (shown at bottom of this post). These traps aren't roddable and bottle gullies are in theory, but would they be in practice? If you have a branch (tributary) coming away from the house at right angle, I suspect the rod wouldn't be able to curve down into the trap's outflow and so it ends up unroddable. A different matter if you use an inline bottle gully, but that requires the pipe run to be close to the wall and I am keen to have a bit of separation (also need to go round a chimney outcrop). Perhaps putting the branch at 45 degrees would help with rodding access, but the ultimate access would be provided by an inspection chamber of access where it joins the main pipe. That seems over the top though.

 

Is rodding access a red herring for rainwater as the blockages are local to the trap and not in the pipe sections?

 

What do others think if the right approach?

 

 

 

Marley UG47 and UG44: Looks like you have to solvent weld a length of pipe to UG44 since there's no rubber seal and anyway the outflow is higher.

 

Toolstation's Aquaflow has a ring seal but that feels like tempting fate as it's still below outflow:

Edited Wednesday at 08:32 by MortarThePoint

[Russell griffiths]

How far is it too the outlet, could you clean backwards ?

nothing of what you linked to is necessary 

you don’t need any form of trap, and don’t need any form of gulley

110mm pipe then a rest bend then a bit of pipe and a square plastic grid. 
if a blockage occurs you lift the mesh lid and stick the hosepipe down it. 
if you have a long run parallel to the house you could put a rodding eye on the end if you wanted. 
no solids going down it just some dust from the gutters. 
and no smells coming back up. 
just be sure the ditch doesn’t overflow and back up your pipe, you might need a flood prevention valve on the end. 

[Mr Punter]

It is good to have a grille between the gutter and the surface water sewer to trap leaves etc.  No need for a trapped gulley.  Rodding is never likely to be needed although you may get roots invading and it is best to have some access to deal with this.

[Susie]

Are you concerned about leaves?

I’ve used something like this.

FLOPLAST PUSH-FIT DEBRIS GULLY 110MM (25121)

My rainwater also goes to a soak away that has a bottle trap/bucket before it as well.  I can’t say how good it all works as not been up long enough yet. 

 

[Kelvin]

Because we have a rainwater soakaway I have a rodding eye on each straight run and a silt trap before the pipework enters the soakaway. We get a lot of debris in our gutters. A combination of leaves on one side and a bit of algae on the North side. I also fitted self cleaning leaf traps which actually work quite well. 

[MortarThePoint]

16 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

you may get roots invading

Where do they get in, through the ring seals? 

[saveasteading]

12 hours ago, Kelvin said:

self cleaning leaf traps 

That sounds useful. Would I find these by googling? 

I'd like self cleaning gutters too please.

[MortarThePoint]

16 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

110mm pipe then a rest bend

I'll have to check my levels, but may struggle to get a rested bend in and have a good gradient as well (1:40). The longest run is going to be about 28m so 1:40 would need 700mm which may be optimistic even from the surface let alone a rested bend. Most of the run will be under paving so can be near the surface.

[MortarThePoint]

15 hours ago, Susie said:

Are you concerned about leaves?

I’ve used something like this.

FLOPLAST PUSH-FIT DEBRIS GULLY 110MM (25121)

My rainwater also goes to a soak away that has a bottle trap/bucket before it as well.  I can’t say how good it all works as not been up long enough yet. 

 

 

Looks smart, but I'm using a shoe rather than pipe straight in so I'll use something with a grate on the top surface

[Kelvin]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

That sounds useful. Would I find these by googling? 

I'd like self cleaning gutters too please.

Self-cleaning is a bit of an overstatement by Lindab although the debris does end up in a neat pile in front of it. My only criticism of it is you need three bits. The downpipe, a shoe and the self cleaning trap. Four bits in my case as I also used one of those rubber boots. The plus side was I was able to use a single run of downpipe as the shoe and trap added length. 
 

 

Edited yesterday at 10:31 by Kelvin

[JamesP]

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Self-cleaning is a bit of an overstatement by Lindab although the debris does end up in a neat pile in front of it. My only criticism of it is you need three bits. The downpipe, a shoe and the self cleaning trap. Four bits in my case as I also used one of those rubber boots. The plus side was I was able to use a single run of downpipe as the shoe and trap added length. 
 

 

I fitted the same and like you abit disappointed, the trap being plastic, overall does not really match the quality of the Majestic system which is excellent. 

[Kelvin]

It annoyed me when I was fitting them and nearly decided not to. I fitted the first one and lived with it for a while. I decided I never really noticed it wasn’t metal like the rest of the rainwater system so fitted the others. The only place I didn’t fit them is at the front of the house where the patio is as I wanted  the patio slabs cut around the pipe. I did fit the shoe though which allows me to slide it up in case I ever needed access to the pipe without having to take it off. 
 

 

Edited yesterday at 12:44 by Kelvin

[-rick-]

This is probably a bit of a highjack (sorry), but what are peoples thoughts on using something like this gutterbrush as an alternative to the traps discussed above?

 

https://www.guttersupplies.co.uk/gutterbrush-4mtr-black-box-of-10-p-GB4PK10/

[Russell griffiths]

3 hours ago, MortarThePoint said:

I'll have to check my levels, but may struggle to get a rested bend in and have a good gradient as well (1:40). The longest run is going to be about 28m so 1:40 would need 700mm which may be optimistic even from the surface let alone a rested bend. Most of the run will be under paving so can be near the surface.

Use a short 90 then but concrete it in to stop it moving. 

[Kelvin]

1 hour ago, -rick- said:

This is probably a bit of a highjack (sorry), but what are peoples thoughts on using something like this gutterbrush as an alternative to the traps discussed above?

 

https://www.guttersupplies.co.uk/gutterbrush-4mtr-black-box-of-10-p-GB4PK10/

My experience of it is that it depends really on how much debris builds up in the gutters. If it’s a few leaves it’s ok. However, where we were in a previous house there were so many leaves that they didn’t dry out and blow away. They broke down in the gutters along with the build up of algae so it clogged up eventually. It was a right manky mass removing the brush to clean it all out. This wasn’t helped by the fact it was a three storey townhouse so quite high teetering about on a ladder. 

[Mr Punter]

8 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

This wasn’t helped by the fact it was a three storey townhouse so quite high teetering about on a ladder. 

 

Three storeys up on a ladder with a bucket and trowel v £50-£100 for a pro with a high reach vacuum to do it safely from the ground.

[Kelvin]

5 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

 

Three storeys up on a ladder with a bucket and trowel v £50-£100 for a pro with a high reach vacuum to do it safely from the ground.

I wasn’t recommending it and  it was pissing water down the wall above the door at the time. 

[Temp]

Our down pipes go straight into 110mm pipe bends with rubber adaptors/seals.

 

We have a lot of leaf fall which fills up gutters but it's never been a problem for the drains themselves. If we wanted to rod we would need to remove a seal and probably a section of down pipe.

 

I use a wet vac and some plastic waste pipe to clean the gutters. The trick is to have a short 40mm section that is cut at an angle which goes in the gutter but as soon as possible that opens up to 50mm pipe for the bends and down to the wet vac. Works on our 1.5 storey house. Not tried a two storey.

[saveasteading]

For commercial buildings with square metal downpipes I developed a standard detail. The dp joined into a plastic pipe in which we cut out a mousehole opening,  a big mouse.

Then that sat just above a grated gully. Thus the leaves that came down were caught and removed by hand. And if they weren't removed, the water still escaped to ground.

The plastic shoe can be the difficult thing to find to suit the dp.