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I don't get it (admittedly i live in NYC and am clueless about this kind of thing). Why would you want to disconnect your gutters and how would that help with overflow?

Yes. Please explain for the clueless but curious.

I'd have to think that the issue is more about disconnecting gutters/downspouts that "empty into a shared drain." Some places the downspouts are routed underground and empty into the sewer, adding all the run off from everyone's roofs to the run off from the road. In a heavy rain, this can sometimes overwhelm the sewer system. I think. Because I know they started forbidding people from doing that (draining gutters to the sewers) around here a number of years ago.

looks like a great place for mosquito breeding.

Many major cities have done sewer/storm drain separation, so if a gutter goes directly to a shared drain (which I've never seen), it's purely a storm drain and has no connection with the sewer system. You can check with your locality and see what they've done.

Most home gutters just have a downspout to some sort of gravelly area by the house, though, don't they? The idea is to direct water away from the foundation, and you'd best make sure your chain is positioned to do that.

Oh -- reading Portland's requirements [pdf], your rain chain wouldn't qualify for their program, as it doesn't drain the water far enough from the foundation. That could be a problem.

I think by "shared drain," they main a combined sewer system, which is one where the storm and sanitary sewers are combined. While this is no longer done today, it was common practice until the mid-20th century. In larger storm events, the runoff from road and such can overwhelm treatment plants', leading to the excess being allowed to flow, untreated, into rivers or where ever else these sewers empty. And just for the record, I live in a house built in the 1890's which originally had the downspouts connected directly to a combined sewer system - but they are not any longer.

One more thing - I definately agree with the comments about making sure your downspouts drain far enough away from your house!

Stormwater runoff from your roof is a major environmental problem, even if you live in a city that has a modern "separated" storm sewer system (meaning extra water in the system won't cause sewage overflows). In separated systems, the storm drains (carrying water from your roof and the streets) are channeled directly, untreated into your local stream. So all that hot (from hitting black roofs, asphalt, etc.) water is speed in high volumes and at high speeds, untreated, into the system and gets spit out a stream outfall like a firehouse. This wreaks absolute havoc on stream ecology. All that high-temperature, high volume, high velocity stormwater erodes the streams, strips the channels of vegetation and siltation, and changes the chemistry of the water such that native species have a hard time surviving. The end result is something called "urban stream syndrome". So... by disconnecting your roof downspout, you reduce the amount of stormwater going into the sytem, and therefore the amount of environmentally disasterous stormwater being dumped into our streams.

if worried about your foundations, maybe you could investigate connecting your downpipes to a rain water tank. There are systems that let you use water for gardening etc later on, or even discharge rain water to storm drains at a controlled rate over a period of time.

As the article noted, rain chains are a nice addition to a home. However, before replacing your home's downspouts with chain, make sure that water draining on them is directed away from your foundation via a trough or other landscape device. Otherwise the result could be a wet basement, damaged foundation, or structure settlement. Also make sure that the distance between the chain and your house wall is sufficient to prevent water splashing down the chain from wetting your exterior walls.

Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) is a huge problem in New York City, where we do have combined sewers/storm drains. Riverkeeper has an excellent summary on this topic:

http://riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/pollution/the_facts/989

The city's sewage treatment plants frequently get overwhelmed when it rains. A big part of the problem is that we lack sufficient permeable surfaces to absorb the rainwater, so it simply gets mixed with all the dirt and pollutants on the street surface and goes straight into the sewer system, and in heavy rains from there to our rivers and beaches. PlaNYC, introduced by the mayor's office this year, includes several provisions to address CSO's, including the goal of establishing more parks, trees and greenery, all of which can help retain stormwater.

The CSO problem is one of the best arguments for green (vegetated) roofs, as the engineered soil they use is designed to absorb stormwater (but is light enough not to destroy the roof even when wet). Sustainable South Bronx and Earthpledge are two groups working to establish more green roofs in NYC.

But a solution that many homeowners and apartment buildings could implement cheaply and more quickly would be to set up rainwater collection systems (one or several rainbarrel/cisterns), and use the water for gardening or household tasks. Water Resources Group has a great explanation of the whys and hows, and a map of demonstration sites. Municipal water rates are going up every year, so capturing this resource instead of letting it pollute our waterways makes financial sense too.

Other cities addressing their sewer overlow issues with rainwater collection plans and incentives include Portland, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, Austin, and Vancouver.

(And on the mosquito issue, any rainwater collection system should include screens to prevent mosquito breeding.)

As a follow up to anne's mosquito comment, I've also been told that adding a capfull (is that the appropriate way to write that?) of bleach to your rain barrel, or to add pellets specifically designed for preventing mosquitos from breeding in your rain barrel.

i imagine the bleach would rule out the possibility of using that water for anything around the garden, though...

our turn-o-the-century house had downspouts that dropped straight down from the eaves, beside the house and down next to the foundation walls to the drain. bad news. clay pipes used to be the material of choice for pipes and ours were quite damaged by invasive, thirsty city tree roots. this resulted in seriously soggy sections in the basement where the rainwater was pouring into the ground around the foundation of the house.

Toronto's downspout re-direct program was great. Just called, got ourselves on 'the list' and 7 months later our house was gotten to. (we had to do something immediately so temporarily got ourselves 2 rainbarrels (took 2 storms to fill 'em) and used the grey water to bathe our plants for the summer). The program replaced all of our eaves troughs, directed the spouts into the middles of the front and back gardens, provided us with a sweet rainbarrel 'system' and filled up the old ground holes to boot. This is a 'free' service (but we pay some crazy taxes here).

Re: mosquitoes, bleach and using the water for gardening... use olive oil (enough to thinly coat the exposed water surface) to prevent breeding; it's non-toxic.

... bring on the rain!

:)