How To Make Your Own First Flush Diverter System
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2014
- This is my DIY First Flush diverter system. Used to remove the dirty roof water that heads towards your tank when it begins to rain.
You will need
90mm Tee Joint
90mm Pipe
90mm-100mm reducer
100mm pipe
2x 100mm coupling (1 must be threaded)
100mm Threaded Cap
100mm Styrofoam ball or Water Bottle slightly narrower than 100mm
Facebook: / carazypermaculture
Website & Instructions: carazy.net/how-to-build-a-rain...
Have an awesome day!
** UPDATE 29 Mar 2015 **
It's now Autumn and we've gone through 7 months with some massive tropical storms and it's working a treat. I've drilled the hole out to 6mm as it wasn't draining as well as I'd like. I've only cleaned it out 3 times and each time there's barely been half a cm (quarter inch) of gunk in the bottom. Today there were 3 dead geckos and a small amount of dirt so it's working well.
*** Addressing some of the confusion as to what this system does:
First flush diverters are NOT designed to remove large debris like leaves etc. Their purpose is to remove the fine dust and sediment that builds up on your roof and if it enters your tank you get sludge/mud buildup at the bottom that is difficult to remove. First flush diverters minimise this. You should absolutely be addressing the issue of leaves and twigs at the gutter level BEFORE they enter your downpipes, not just before it enters the tank or have a chance to clog in your pipework. I do this with one of the many forms of gutterguard (see link above). Alternatively you can put some sort of non-fine mesh where the water exits the gutter. I hope this clarifies the objectives of these devices. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Thanks mate. This video was very helpful. Building my own first flush system. Using your idea to use a bottle inside the pipe, as well as not tightening the cap to allow for a bit of water to seep through.
Thanks for a well thought out system and professional presentation! Thanks for posting
I really like your simple solution. Well produced vid to boot.
Excellent.
Just what I need.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this! I'm reading your site and it's informative and I'm laughing at the Perpetual Chicken Roosting Machine post. Loving all your content! Thanks again!
Thank you for the video demonstration on first flush system.
If the vertical flush pipe assembly were left loose and slightly leaky it may serve the same purpose as the tiny hole people like to drill through the bottom cap for overflow drainage. Optionally, I'd just leave the bottom cap slightly loose as you suggested but with a brick under it, just in case, that will let it continually weep a tiny amount and prevent back-flow of dirty water up into the tanks.
Aside from spending the dollar on the ball rather than messing about with a plastic bottle, your DIY design is very admirable. Cheers.
I do sometimes just leave the cap loose. The primary reason I wanted to utilise a hole in the bottom is that you'll notice the downpipe and hence the drainhole ends right at the base of one of the major posts that hold my house and deck up. I'm not overly keen on having the oxidisation of the steel stirrup accelerate or wooden post rot from the excess water being in that area so by using a hole I can determine the appropriate size I need to put a long term fitting that I can then redirect away from the house post via a small garden/irrigation hose offcut.
As for the $1 styrofoam ball, maybe I watched too much McGuyver as a kid but there's something satisfying of being able to utilise things lying around the house and repurposing them.
:o)
Nice job I’ve got to figure that out for myself only I have to convert all that millimeter garble to inches🇺🇸
Thank you
Plastic bottle is a great idea. I am planning for a plastic ball. Thanks :)
put sand in your water bottle to 1/3 full and it will float up straighter
I received an email with someone asking "I wonder if you could cut a 1 inch by 1 foot vertical slot toward the bottom of the 100mm tube and epoxy glue a clear plastic window so you could look in the pipe to view any sediment build up?"
You could but being outdoors the clear perspex would allow sunlight into the pipe and algae would bloom negating any visual aid and increasing the chance of it all clogging up. So I would not recommend it.
The the threaded cap at the bottom is there to allow clearing and inspection of the pipe.
Carazy.net Permaculture good point.
just add a cover...
Only thing I would not reccomend is the water bottle or float being a close fit. If leaves etc fall in the flush pipe they'll jam the float down.
Good point. I have gutter guard installed to prevent large debris entering my downpipes so it's not an issue.
carazy.net/blue-mountain-gutter-mesh-install/
There are also number of different strainer type PVC fittings that are cheap ($1-2) that people could implement in the entry point where the gutter feeds the downpipe. This would have the benefit of stopping leaves before they enter your pipes. You'd still have to maintain your gutters though. It's the trade off people need to work out on whether the expense of gutter guard outweighs the long term costs of gutter deterioration and cleaning expenses.
Even a small piece of flyscreen, siliconed in the gutter over the outlet where the water drops down would sufffice.
My tank also has a strainer on it's inlet and this system is designed so that even if leaves were to fill it up, unscrewing the end cap on the 100mm pipe and cleaning it out should prove easy enough miantenance. Two years on and so far I've had nothing but a few geckos and roof silt.
I use two 45 gallons barrels plumbed together, after the rain fills them it flows over into my collection tanks. I use the water from the barrels to water my plants and garden, in that way I don’t waste any water. Barrels get drained down before next rain.
Hi! I'm obviously really confused here. I found this video while looking for another type of flush system, but thought I'd watch to learn something new. I understand the reason to have a primary collection point for sediment to collect and be removed from the water you'd like to use, but this system seems to imply that the sediment will collect in the tube you add here - isn't that a real pain for cleaning it out? And what purpose does the float have? Does it close off the supply to the tube you've added here once it's full? Doesn't this cause the dirty water to pass right into your tank once the new section becomes full? I'm probably getting this wrong here. I'm just very confused. I would think that a primary tank for filtration would be something that would automatically separate solids from water and be easy to clean and not have a float system that would render it's purpose invalid once the tank is full.
The concept he is going for is to simply trap all the oil, pollen, ect from the first flush of the rain collection surface(roof). After that he isnt really worried too much about sediment. The hole he proposed 5:40 is an auto reset for the system that would allow it to collect more sediment in a long steady rain.
I get what you’re saying too. I don’t understand the float. I don’t think it is needed.
XcerptShow has answered this for me. The float is to isolate the sediment filled water that accumulates in the diverter, from the flow of water to the tank. If you imagine the falling water from the vertical downpipe churning up the sediment in the lower part it would cause a lot of turbulence. Also there's the venturi effect of the water flowing to the tank which could then suck up the turbulent water.