water butt connector bodge repaired

The above is in several parts. The gutter downpipe- the top of the connector - the bottom of the connector which screws into the top half- the ribbed hose to the butt and the pipe which takes the water away ( white pipe white)

so what happens is the water from the gutter is diverted into the ribbed butt pipe until the water butt is full then goes away as normal in this case the white pipe

Mr bodge (previous owner) it had his hand in it and sodded it all up. he obviously could not do a simple job correctly, even down to pipe size.

First of all instead of having it as in the photo to get it like that he had partially unscrewed the bottom halve of the connector to get it in position (in line with the main discharge pipe behind the greenhouse) ,so it was loose and,water escaping though the joints

Not only that but the pipes being different sizes he had made up the difference with plumbers mate paste and then taped it all up.

It was the biggest crap work I have ever seen

Right now to put it all as should have been, and what a struggle to remove the bodge

this is what i had to cut away before i could even start the repair properly, part of.




Ok so what I used to make up the size difference was I cut a piece of roof flashing tape, (amazing what I keep in the workshop). had to think hard what to use at first.




Ok everything cleaned up so putting it all back together

taped around both ends of the white pipe with the strip of flashing tape and put all together, use made a fantastic tight fitting ,then insulating tape around them so nothing moved.

finally reconnected ribbed hose to butt and the down pipe and overflow (white)

Now water going into butt as it should and hopefully fill up quite quickly

No Barry you should see some of things I found here when we moved in (roughly the same time as you)


Classic was one of those four way plastic mains extensions for indoor use only. Previous owner had run it outside into a small brick box and put a loose bit of ply on top it was wet, covered in grass and weeds, and about as dangerous as you could imagine.



The entire thing was a disaster waiting to happen, luckily I saw it within a few days and removed all of it, there were also some lights (in bushes etc) which were not IP rated, he seemed to have some manic desire to light up the garden, it would have lit him up if they had got wet, garden....rain....how hard is it to work that one out


Those water butt diverters are very useful (If they are connected correctly) our 300 litre butt filled up yesterday with only a few hours rain.

This one fills up quickly now I have sorted out the diverter correctly

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