I have a situation where down spouts would look bad, and thought about using rain chains like these:
These will be on each side of the entry way porch and about 16″ away from the walls…How well do these work? Am I going to get water splattered all over my porch and walls?
They would drain into a buried 4 inch pvc pipe and the water exited to the street–so my concern is really getting the water from the gutter to the pvc and thought this might be an attractive way to do it…
What do you all think? Any experience with these?
Thanks for the input.
Replies
The Adirondack Museum has rain chains on several of their buildings and having been there in the rain many times they look like they work just fine. They are not as fancy as your photo, just some rather large rusty chain but they do the job. They drain into a pile of stone - I dont know what if anything is under the stone.
My mom has exactly that kind of rain chain, only hers are 4 ft. from the walls. She gets no splatter at all. At 16", there might be some, but it'll probably not be much.
-- J.S.
I think it will be near zero. We've had some of those cup types and they work great... kinda hypnotic to look out the window at the water trailing over them. There is of course a maximum amount they can handle before overflowing, so don't drain your entire roof thru one chain.
Where are you? Is it really windy? Are you anchoring the bottom ends? (eg, a bar thru the pvc and lowest link) Will it be easy to mow the lawn? 16" from walls of the house or walls of the porch? Do you really want to get splashed on windy ways?
Begging, your pardon - too many questions.
cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
Mowing the lawn - a good point.
I've seen them in the Seattle area. Usually just 1/2" to 5/8" chain, pretty big stuff, let go rusty. Matches a rustic siding pretty well. Can look like you are trying to secure the house against REALLY big winds.
If the chain just reaches the lawn, you could have a clip to hold them high for lawn mowing.
But I've usually seen them terminating in 1" to 3" gravel.David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
We just replaced a five year old window that had rotted out completely, and had let water into the framing below so it rotted out as well. The reason? A rain chain 2 feet away. It has since been replaced with a regular old PVC downpipe. Rain chains may look groovy as all getout, but certainly in this climate (Canadian West Coast), they're pretty useless.My 2 cents.
"We just replaced a five year old window that had rotted out completely"Plate, I would consider the flashing on that window to be seriously suspect -not to mention all others installed at the same time. No amount of splatter from a chain should be able to penetrate so easily. I've seen rain chains overloaded when rain was very heavy, but that's okay - remember, if it's raining hard everywhere, "splatter" won't even be noticed. The purpose of the chain is to divert the majority of the water fom the roof to the sewer, and for this they work fine. I wouldn't have one running through my living room, though.
It's not the flashing. The window head is not exposed to splatter - it's up under the soffit & was about the only part of the unit that was okay.
The ones I have seen are just a straight run of galvanised chain, no cups.
They work really well. Never seen or heard of splatter problems.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
Just wanted to give a big thank you to all who responded--I appreciate the input...I think I'm going to give it a whirl...Thanks
The one house I saw near here used heavy chains and they were anchored to the ground about 6 feet out from the corner of the house.
This was a rectangular shaped house with a hip roof and chains coming down from each corner. It looked like they were expecting a tornado and trying to chain the house to the ground. :)
I thought it looked funny.
"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."
Used to live in Japan.
Rained like hell there. They used those things everywhere.
They were pretty heavy chain. But remember, in Japan they have
very large eve overhangs. 3-4 ft.
Stef