Bicycle related object here.



I like my new rain chain. I want a more aged look though.

I've applied a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, and salt to it and it darkened up the chain nicely. It actually made the galvanized smash links look bleached, I think they'll rust.

The aluminum chainring became a lovely gray. The piece of a Shimano cog got dark but no corrosion if that makes sense. The other two Miche cogs, look brand new.

It's interesting. It'll be fun to observe the changes through the winter.

Shouldn't you be using an actual bicycle chain? That will rust readily. And find yourself some steel chain rings. Or ask for donations- I'm sure plenty of BF'ers have old steel chain rings sitting around they could donate to a good cause.

I considered it. 10' of chain like you see is about $20, so it's actually a pretty similar price to a cheapo bike chain.

I may have enough worn out chains to do this. Maybe on the back corner of the house, out of the wind. I might actually run a very short piece of chain down the center of the chainring, to keep water moving down the line. Though a little splashing might be better for the plants beneath it.

I don't necessarily want the rings and cogs to rust but I'd like them to look weathered. I guess time will tell.

Things like this are used here in Japan, usually of copper, which turns green over time. I'm sure it'll rust just fine, especially if Made in China.

Just lay them on the ground, they'll age much faster, hanging in the wind they dry immediately after the water comes down...

I never understood these. The whole point of gutters is to direct water away from your foundation

The cogs are probably chrome plated which is very resistant to corrosion. If you want ones that will rust, look for cheaper black cogs that are painted and remove the paint.

I wonder what's going to happen when the rainwater hits that chainring about 2 feet down from the gutter's downspout. I'm thinking its going to splatter outward rather than continue down the chain. Not sure if that's the effect you want, but wait and see.

They're everywhere in my town. The new fancy builds all have a few up front and the rest of the house are traditional gutters.

It's a juniper heavy area and they clog gutters like none other. These dump straight through and are easy to unclog if you don't have a filter. Just a quick spray of the hose.

I was getting leaks in my gutters due to a huge length between downspouts and clogs. I cleaned the clogs and patched the leaks, and added a downspout to prevent the same issues.

They're cool if you run them into a flower bed or something. I dislike them where I might walk, I rented a place that they were in the way of the gate. I nearly pulled them off every time I took out he trash.

I suspect you are right. Chains like this (non load bearing) are cheap and easy to fix. I actually want a little splatter for the plants underneath. It's going to rain/snow this weekend. That top ring may have to go pending my observations.

Is this in a cold climate? Cool idea, but I’d think that ice forming on it in winter will put undo stress on the gutter/facia board.

Dan

It might be around here because we have basements and a fairly deep frost line. that you don't want water around your house

With the offset from the house vs the straight line, they deposit water into the same spot, a foot and a half from the house.

Interesting that the shadow of the third sprocket down was caught completely on-edge, and looks like a piece of string holding the chain together.

Let it rust thoroughly and go at it with a wire wheel. Repeat several times and you have a nice rust blued chain!

I forgot to mention, the already existing chains are several feet from the house due to the deck awning.

The new chain is actually near the driveway, there is no crawlspace or basement under there. The houses here have a very solid lava rock base just below the crawlspace. That's why we can't have basements.

A little water won't cause anything to sink.

Dip it in Coca-Cola

Actually, that's the function of the downspout; particularly, the configuration of the bottom of the downspout.
A "splash block" under the end of the chain would serve to divert the water away from the foundation.

When I bought the place there were water issues in the basement. I put new window wells and a quad axle dump of dirt around to regrade as well as new gutters. Haven't had a problem since, except for the storm in august that dumped 15" in <24 hrs on this end of town. Many of my neighbors had flooding because their sump pumps couldn't keep up. I had a bit of seepage around the edges. Fortunately I sit a little higher than the neighbors and we didn't lose power.

I see the splash block sitting on top of the "overspout"!

We had water issues in our basement too. I actually saw little geysers an inch or so high coming out of cracks in the basement floor after a heavy rain.
These problems mostly all went away when we installed new gutters ("commercial grade"), with 10-foot corrugated plastic pipes to carry the water away from the foundation.
Now we get a little ground water incursion if there's more than about 8" in a short time. On our "wish list" is installation of a sump and drain tiles so we can finish the basement. Sadly... $$$.

Those are old street pavers to hold it down when it gets windy. I've salvage hundreds of them over the years from job sites in the old parts of town. I've used them for lots of landscaping projects and hundreds of feet of planting edging, but never used one for a splash block. I still have a few hundred stone & brick ones in stock

I thought about this too, but it appears to be next to the garage, where there won't be much underground foundation to ruin.

It WOULD be better to hold it out to the side though.

Extra cool in the winter

And the purpose of this is???

90 percent to make you question why I did it and 10 percent to make you question why I wanted you to question why I did it.

Did it work?