Rainwater Diverter

In one corner of my section there stands a black barrel that I think the previous owners intended to use as a rain barrel. As the forecast for this weekend was for rain, I thought I'd hook it up.

As I have a 3d printer, I elected to print the parts needed to divert water from the downpipe. I wasn't happy with any of the designs online, so I made my own.



Features:

- From the top it's a complete tube. If you dropped a tennisball down the downpipe it would come out the bottom. Instead of any protrusion it uses surface tension to pull the water off to the side.
- Placement of holes means no water can “miss” the holes. This makes it efficient even at very low flow rates.
- The holes are small (3mm) and there are no protrusions. So debris should not get stuck. We'll see how this works in practice.
- Barb for a 10-12mm ID hose (normal garden hose in New Zealand)
- No supports required


Does it work? Yeah, very well. In my tests no water made it past the diverter at all.