First Flow Diverter

"What the heck is a first flow diverter, Brent?"  Well, I'm so very glad you asked.  If you've read my blog report on self-watering containers (SWC), you understand that I'm trying a different type of gardening this year.  Part of maximizing that effort is to collect rainwater to water the plants within the containers.  If you've ever gardened, you may have noticed how wonderful plants respond to actual rain vs. chlorinated city water.  I know I have.  There is much research on it, but I won't go into other than to say that I feel it'll be better for the plants and better for the SWC experimenting I'm doing.  Now that we understand this post is related to rain water, you have to ask what's the best way to collect rain water.  The obvious answer is the roof of your house.  Next time it rains, check out how much water comes off your roof!  Well, depending on where you live, your roof will have some sort of debris and possibly chemicals from the environment.  For that matter, you need to know what your roof is constructed of to see if you should even do it to begin with.  Let's assume your roof type is fine to collect water as mine is.  Wouldn't it be nice to clean your roof before trying to collect that rain?  You know, an initial wash before collecting the water.  Well, that's the purpose of the first flow diverter I've constructed.  It takes the initial run-off from the roof and diverts it to another location.  Once that amount is collected, a valve (of sorts) closes and allows the following rain to fill your rain capturing containers.  I'll go over the containers on another post.  I researched the net and there are many companies out there who make a diverter, but they are expensive or not very good.  As usual, I don't like to pay my hard-earned $$ to others and love to tinker around, so, I made my own as I tend to do.  I tested it and it works fantastic.  A breakdown is in the picture below.  It cost me roughly $25 to make.  The pic below is numbered so you get a visual of what pieces I used from Lowes.

All PVC:
1.  4" to 3" adapter.  Water flows from roof down pipe into this.
2.  Nylon (I think) screen material to keep mosquitos and debris from roof out.
3.  2 each 14" white zip ties to secure screen material.
4.  3" pipe with integrated 2" side elbow.  Elbow will flow "clean" water to containers.
5.  14" zip tie.  This assembly slips into a 12' long thin-wall 4" pipe.  The purpose of the zip tie is to remove the sloppy play when it sits into the pipe.  I didn't want to glue much of anything with this assembly so I can disassemble and reuse it if something breaks.
6.  3" to 2" adapter.
7.  2" bushing.  The outside is smooth.  The inside is threaded to 1 1/4".
8.  1 1/4" threaded male to 2".
9.  2" pipe with holes drilled in it.  This is the only glued part from 9 to 8.  Inside 9 is a ping pong ball.
10.  Zip tie used to secure 11 to 9.  Used so I can remove to clean and replace ping pong ball if needed.
11.  2" end cap.

Number 11 is the bottom of the assembly and goes into the 12' PVC pipe.  The zip tie (5) stabilizes the unit in the pipe.  Rain flows into #1 through the assembly and out the holes in 9.  It will continue to flow into the 12' pipe until the water level reaches #9.  At #9, the ping pong ball begins to float upwards with the water level until contact is made with #8.  Number 8 has a beveled edge that the ping pong ball seats into which seals the flow.  Now, water is cut off from the 12' long pipe and water fills #4 until the level reaches the 2" elbow and flows out.  That's it; more to come.