Making it Rain -- Under the eaves -- Rain Forest Cafe style.

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dmpeaceman

New member
So my wife had this idea this year, to make it RAIN -- I love the idea because it should be rather easy to implement, and be a very impactful effect with lighting effects.

So it's happening, and one of the big new surprises this year - the plan is to have a run of PVC under the eaves that emit water straight down into rain gutters on the ground for drainage (we want it to look like the rain forest cafe effect). Only for a few seconds per show.... The physical set up of this seems very straight forward, mount PVC under the eaves, hook up to a solenoid valve, hook up to the hose, put rain gutters on the ground - and boom, ready to roll. I was thinking the DIYC community is probably laughing at San Diego problems for trying to make it rain --- because we get NO WEATHER HERE!!!!!!

I wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone had any ideas on what heads I should get for the water emitters. It should look like rain, (we don't want it to "spray"), but it should drip straight down. So of course, I was thinking of drip irrigation heads, but not sure that'd give the dramatic look we are looking for though.

Open to ideas! :p Thanks.
 
stallionent said:
soaker hose?
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Not a bad idea - but probably too much water in a single area. Keep in mind the PVC is running along 100ft+ length under the eaves, so we want to have a lot of smaller water emitters at smaller spaced intervals. I feel like a soaker might allow too much water through.
 
dmpeaceman said:
Not a bad idea - but probably too much water in a single area. Keep in mind the PVC is running along 100ft+ length under the eaves, so we want to have a lot of smaller water emitters at smaller spaced intervals. I feel like a soaker might allow too much water through.
Click to expand...

You can get tiny soaker hoses from drip irrigation systems they are 1/4in. The one from HD Provides a flow rate of approximately 0.4 GPH per ft so u pick the length based on the flow rate you need.

http://m.homedepot.com/p/DIG-1-4-in-x-50-ft-Porous-Drip-Soaker-Hose-PSH50/202614899

EDIT: what you would do is have a main line and tap in with the soaker wherever you need the water, my experience with soakers ( for irrigation ) is that they are very slow and take a while (20-30s ) to start dripping so this may not be the best option for you.

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What if you just drilled holes in the PVC?. It will take some experimenting to get the hole size and distance between holes the way you want. You will also most likely have to feed the pipe from several points to maintain equal water volume in the pipe without squirting at the beginning and a slow drip at the end.
 
One issue I can think of is pressure (and volume) differential between the end of the pipe where you are feeding in the water and the far end of the pipe. This is why most pipes in a house get stepped down after each significant tap. You may want to consider heads that have a built in flow restriction so you can maintain a more even pressure to all heads and reducing the pvc size part way along the run.
 
bshep said:
You can get tiny soaker hoses from drip irrigation systems they are 1/4in. The one from HD Provides a flow rate of approximately 0.4 GPH per ft so u pick the length based on the flow rate you need.

http://m.homedepot.com/p/DIG-1-4-in-x-50-ft-Porous-Drip-Soaker-Hose-PSH50/202614899

EDIT: what you would do is have a main line and tap in with the soaker wherever you need the water, my experience with soakers ( for irrigation ) is that they are very slow and take a while (20-30s ) to start dripping so this may not be the best option for you.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This is cheap and pretty smart. I love the idea. Easy to test! I'm gonna buy it, take a video, and report back! Thanks!
 
Hi, just thinking out loud. If you uesd a rain gutter and drilled lots of holes in it, then inserted very short pieces of tube (1/2" long 1/4" internal diameter) through the holes to ensure the water fell downwards and didn't run along the underside of the gutter. As you filled the gutter the water level (and by default the pressure) would be the same across the full length ensuring that the flow was consistant. Should be easy to whip out from off the shelf parts and if all went wrong and overflowed water would just add to the effect.
 
covewi said:
Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVN5wno8EaY. Instead of worrying about the water run off you could isolate the rain curtain to a smaller area and build a plastic trough to catch the run off and then pump it back to a reservoir for recycling.

I have built several laminar fountains - http://laminar.forumotion.com/t72p200-my-project.
And of course the light source - http://laminar.forumotion.com/t72p100-my-project
Click to expand...

That's awesome - and here I thought I (EDIT: my wife) had a unique idea!!! Probably a bit higher flow than I'm imagining, but still pretty awesome - nothing bad about going TOO big. Did you make that? if so, I'd love to see the build plans.

Your laminar fountain looks great. I've built a LED lit laminar flow jet before as well (admittedly, not super successfully). I still have a 20' long, 8" diameter pipe sitting in my garage, and a box of 3,000 straws. I was thinking I would make a bunch of these - but I made one, and then never went back to it.
 
CJDeeds said:
this looks like it might be what you're wanting. team from Craftsman built one (albeit for inside): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjt5EUAfTkg
Click to expand...

Nice - really cool. Thanks for the link. Ours is definitely going to be much bigger scale, but the concept is the same. I need to test and see how much water flow we can actually support, as this is just going to be hooked up to 2 different hose bibs, and 2 solenoid sprinkler valves. So chances are, the water outlets need to be further apart.

I plan on starting R&D on this in the next 2 weeks. Will update.
 
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