Linking gutters on a Robinson greenhouse

Hello! I'm new to the forum and wanted to ask a question about waterbutts and greenhouses. I've just bought myself a Robinsons greenhouse. it's 8' x 14'. It's gone together easily enough and I'm really pleased with it. I'm thinking about how to collect rainwater. The greenhouse has rather small gutters and very small downpipes, only 28mm.

I was thinking about having a large galvanised livestock drinking trough as a waterbutt, positioned on the side of the greenhouse where I have staging. In an ideal world, I'd like to feed water both gutters into the trough. Has anyone worked out a way of linking the gutters across the end of the greenhouse, (in my case on the 8' wall). I'd like to try and make it look as neat as possible. Having shelled out for a nice greenhouse I want to avoid spoiling the look of it.

 

Welcome James! Most guttering systems have corner joints so you could replace the ends with those. 8 foot across is a bit of a distance though, and there's probably nothing to attach them to across the back. Also remember you need a slight fall down to your receptacle all the way around - the existing gutters may only have been set up to fall to one end the same on each side. You may have to add some wedges under the start of the gutter and experiment using a hosepipe
I know a trough will look good, but a cover is normally used on water butts to reduce algae growth.

 

Hi,

Seems Robinsons so an extra gutter kit etc to do exactly what you want, just search their site on Gutter.
Would think anything bigger is going to look out of place.

Robinsons Greenhouses

 

Thanks Caroline. Yes I'm sure you are right, I'll need to create a lid to the trough to minimise algae and mosquitos etc, with maybe a hinged door for dipping a watering can in. Wanted to get something set up quickly so I've gone for this for now, with flexi pipes coming off the factory issue gutters. Would have looked better if I could have centred the trough but there needs to be room for a path. (Will paint the pipes the same colour as the greenhouse to see if that helps.)

I also found the page that Ricky mentioned, (many thanks Ricky!) That suggests a horizontal pipe between the two gutters with a down pipe coming off that. Food for thought. Its a matter of weighing up whether the extra pipe running across the greenhouse would look worse than what I've done so far I guess.

It's going to take a while before this part of the garden looks like something other than a building site but I'm looking forward to getting started.

 

Well that's a canny solution @James Rowse - I had assumed you had the water supply by the greenhouse door. This way you avoid the crossing pipe and both side gutters can have the same slope. Btw, I use a water pump with a standard Bosch battery to make watering easier - the input pipe goes between the louvres into the water butts, and then the spray end stays inside with the pump.

 

Ok, thanks, another rabbit hole awaits! I'm off to research waterbutt pumps!

 

Do you have mains electricity or mains water in the greenhouse or if either could be connected ?

While your waterbutt is a good supply for your greenhouse bed and strong established plants, its not the best water for seed growing , cuttings or young plants as it can contain fungal plant diseases.

Water: collecting, storing and re-using / RHS

 

Thanks Ricky, noted. No mains power so far, I'd only just put it together, but it might happen at some point. As for mains water, again no, but the outside tap isn't that far away.

 

Always worthwhile to lay some conduit before you flag or concrete etc all around the greenhouse so you don't have to starting digging it all up again.

Having some electrics in there soon will allow you to have some of those mini propagators to get your seeds off to a good start.

You haven't mentioned what you are planning to grow in that lovely new greenhouse ?

 

Moved to our house in 2021 and I'm just getting to grips with my first large garden. I want to grow lots of plants from seed so a good sized greenhouse seemed to make sense. I'm planning on the usual sort of salad crops in the bed. Also thinking of growing wild flowers from seed and then planting out as plugs. We have an area at the front of the property that I want to do as a wild flower / orchard area. Steep learning curve awaits!

 

Always plenty of good advice in Gardeners Corner ....

 

I use boiled Egg water (cold of course) for my small seeds, have done this
for years.

 

Be careful about pumps for rain barrels. I've had a few that worked reliably for only a short time. It might be because they were solar powered.

I had them feeding the capillary watering troughs and it was grand. I may try to revisit that type of setup however using my own solar array.

 

@CanadianLori yes some of them can be short-lived - particularly the immersed ones. The pump I've got is not submersible, so I just leave it dry. It's the same pump I used to modify my knapsack sprayer from manual crank handle to be a "Frankensprayer". It's much lighter without all the piston, lever assembly and I just have to press a button to use it!