How To Install A Rain Chain
When my husband said he was ordering a rain chain to later install as some sort of replacement for a gutter on the house, I said OK, honey, but what exactly is a rain chain and how does it work? In the back of my mind, I was really only concerned with one thing. What does this rain chain you speak of look like? When he told me they were little buckets that hang and collect the water, I was seriously concerned. He says just trust me, love, you will see. Once again, he has proven to me that he is not going to let me down. When am I going to ever learn?
This is the before picture. We didn't have any gutters on the house, which amazes me that a lot of houses in Florida do not have gutters. We had a lot of run off on the sides of the house but the main reason my husband wanted and needed gutters on the side of the house was for his new 850 gallon rain barrel. Yes, I said 850! That will be an upcoming post on our blog so please don't forget to visit.
A catch basin is needed for where the water is collected.
Determine where the pipe needs to go or where your existing perimeter drain is located.Dig a trench and attach the pipe to the catch basin.
After back-filling the catch basin, add some decorative boulders and stones over top. Almost done!
Remove the entire downspout and install the rain chain in the hole where the gutter was attached. We used the Gutter Installer for a more finished look and it just sits in the downspout hole from the top. Add a bead of silicone on the bottom of the Gutter Installer plate before installing.Our rain chain was a little short, so we had to loop a piece of copper wire to the last square and then loop it around one of the slots in the catch basin cover plate
The copper cylinder at the top is the gutter installer and these are the little buckets that hubby was trying to explain to me. Now, it is starting to make sense how it is all going to work. I already love the copper and the "buckets" certainly are not what I conjured in my mind. These are adorable!
There are so many variations of rain chains including the traditional chain, links, spheres etc...
Here is the finished project. What do you think? We had to wait 2 weeks for Mother Nature to bring us rain but when she did it was a spectacular site watching the water fall over each little copper bucket and provide a beautiful natural sound. This is one of our favorite projects so far. If you decide to install a rain chain at your home, I am sure you will enjoy the aesthetic look of a rain chain much better than an aluminum downspout.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Comments
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2 of 102 comments
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if there was no gutter, how come there is one now? Did you mean down pipe?
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There ARE gutters. They mean to say there are no downspouts. Some of these writers. SMH
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I am confused. You said you had no gutters, but then said you installed it into the place where the down spout would go. Did you have gutters, but no down spout? Did you install gutters but left off down spouts? Can these be attatched to a house that has no gutters at all? I ask because we recently removed our gutters because they were so old and have not replaced them as yet.