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Ah, rain chains. Originating from ancient Japan (“kusari doi” for all of you who want to impress their Japanese friends with your new gutter story…) these beautiful ornaments are designed to navigate rainwater safely away from your house’s foundation.

The Japanese combined them with water containers so the rainwater could later be used for other ancient Japanese stuff.

Some, like Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat series, might argue that chains could be more useful for other purposes. Truth is he might be right, for

The rain chains are a very circumstantial addition to your home and it might not be a good idea for all of you to install them

But first, at Gutters London – Professional Services, we shall introduce you to the mechanism behind the wonder that is the rain chain.

Why is the water flow following the chain? Have you ever wondered? Is it magic?

Well, no. It’s fluid statics. Easy.

Now that we have this bothering question out of the way, we can proceed with

Explaining why you should or shouldn’t obtain rain chains for your beloved home.

Let us start with the first very obvious advantage: their appearance.

No doubt they can look attractive, don’t clog as regular gutters do, and save you from the many guttering problems out there.

Chain-look-alike is not the only possible option, of course. You can use almost anything as long as it does not interfere with the water flow. There are way too many DIY ideas about it on the Internet and it’s the perfect way to appear artistic and creative while simply getting rid of some old dinner sets (yes, bent spoons and forks is an actual DIY design).

Now that we’ve literally covered every single advantage there is to rain chains, we can proceed with pointing out the major disadvantages.

Yes, that is correct. There are enough of them for us to distinguish between major and minor ones.

1. They simply can’t compare to a down spout.

Water chains can never handle the heavy rains and the downspouts mainly because they fail with strong water flow.

The downspouts cover much more volume, and there is no place for the furious rain to go than straight down the pipe. Sorry rain chains, we don’t play it small here.

It’s recommended to install backup downspouts if you live in a place with frequent rainstorms, but you still want to keep the kusari doi.

2. They don’t even fully do the job – see, the downpipes successfully directs the water away from your property.

Guess who can’t do that?

Precisely – besides having to worry if it’s going to rain hard or not today, you’d also need to install a collection system below the rain chains so the water could in fact stay away from your house. If your home has at least 3 feet of overhang, you might not need that though.

3. Rain chains are for the weak – weak winds that is.

Because of their nature, they cannot endure strong winds where a nice regular downspout has a significantly better chance to withstand what windy challenge

God has prepared for you in this wild adventure called life.

Some friendly tips: Make sure you nail the rain chains to the ground(or your rainwater harvesting system, respectively) just in case.

Overall: Is it worth it?

Perhaps.

Rain chains are beautiful and your home will certainly stand out so long as you don’t live somewhere with crappy weather.

Posted by Gena Lorainne |