For some time I have been frustrated that a corner of the chicken shed has been damp at floor level after we have had a lot of rain. My husband recently put a wooden overhang on the chicken shed roof to try to take the rain away but we realised that part of the problem was that the concrete in that corner was staying wet and the damp was soaking through the wood from the bottom of the chicken shed.
Because of the fence to the side and behind the shed, it doesn’t get any sun to dry it out. The last thing we want is damp inside the sheds or for the wood to rot.
We have guttering on both the chicken shed and the big shed and had thought that pointing it away from the sheds would take the water away but instead the water was puddling and both sheds had a damp corner. My husband suddenly had a light bulb moment and realised that what we needed were some water butts.
The large expanse of both shed roofs were sending all that volume of rain water towards the sheds. We researched the best price for slimline water butts and found that Wickes had the cheapest and they also came with stands. We bought two and my husband set about installing them.
The back of the chicken shed
I have this wire round both the sides and the back of the chicken shed to protect it from anything trying to chew at the wood. We have never seen any sign of attempted chewing but it’s better to be on the safe side and we check the back of the shed regularly. Its this corner that was getting damp.
The new water butts
I took this photo from the corner in the previous photo so it’s looking in the other direction.
The nearest water butt is the for the chicken shed and the other one is for the big shed. With hind sight we wish we had thought of doing this before but hind sight is always a wonderful thing!
We are hoping that this will solve the problem as it should stop a lot of water standing around the sheds. We will check the butts after rainfall and make sure we empty them, away from the sheds regularly, and they will give us another water source for watering the garden in the summer.
Since my husband extended the chicken shed roof it has already dried out on the previously damp corner and the water butts should help alleviate the problem after heavy rainfall. We just need the next rainfall to test it out. We feel sure that it will solve the problem.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Looks really good, and should be effective. I have an identical water butt, also sourced from Wickes.
I am really pleased with them. We had heavy rain this morning and the bit under the overhang, next to the side fence was completely dry and around the water butts there were no puddles.
That should solve your problem, and look very neat.
We are pleased with them. As they are behind the sheds they are not really seen from the front but they needed to be slim line to fit the space. We are wishing we had it done it earlier but better late than never.
Nice job! I also need to get one for the small chicken run which currently drips its water onto the paving slabs in front.
I wonder how long it will take to fill up. I thought about running a pipe from the outlet which could terminate in one of them drip-watering systems to water the veg plot when we get round to setting that up.
We will have to wait for heavy rain to see how quickly they fill up. My husband also thought of pipework to take the water away but decided this was more simple and less noticeable. Getting excess water to the veg plot is a great idea but our veg plot is to far away at the other end of the garden.