Wow... beautiful design!... I don't have a clue, but interested to know... so just following...

A rule of thumb I use is to have down pipes a max of 12 metres apart. Ends up being less in almost all cases though. By the look of it you'll need at least three. A parapet around the roof edge will hide the gutter and if it's deep enough will allow space to direct the run off to a wall cavity....somewhere.....

Hidden down pipes can be normal plumbers PVC storm water pipes and elbows glued together. No worse than any other plumbing work once there's space available. Space is the key.

I'm sure your architect has the solution otherwise they wouldn't of shown you the concepts! Keep us posted the design. looks cool, any other pictures you can post?

Great looking design!

It all depends on the fall of the roof which your Architect would have worked out. If it falls all to one side, what I would look at doing would be making sure the roof overhang is clear of the balcony and have a gutter with outlets (spouts or pops they are usually called) for the water leave the gutter in lieu of downpipes. So effectively it would be like a waterfall in 3, 4, 5, however many places required. On the ground below you would need some type of drainage, as naturally the water landing in one spot would cause erosion and flooding. It looks like a rural site, so some rocks carefully positioned to guide the water into some soakwells should do the job.

Looks great though and let us know how you go :)

Hi Douglas,

I have great ideas

Please see:

http://www.internationaldesign.vpweb.com.au

& hire me

Warm Regards

Liz

Hi Doug. It's not as frightening in reality. Your striking upper roof is to slope back to the main building 3 deg. (max req). Run a box gutter along where the roofs meet and Fall it ONE way to the end that is hidden from view. ( Ensure an overflow is put into the Rain head ).. the Dp to be around the corner at RHS. or Run it vertically Inside a small boxed out column inside the house. Inspection / Relief Opening " I.O" extended to the outside at low level to enable a sewer router to clear any blockages (if they Occur ) .. It would only fill up the box gutter, and the excess will discharge from the overflow in the rainhead If it did get blocked.

We have a built a very modern house and didn't want the gutter to ruin the clean lines so decided to have the down pipes run internally. So on that side of the house no gutter, rain head or downpipes are visible. They are enclosed between the external aluminium wall and the internal plaster wall. The frame on that side of the house is double thickness so it was an easy fit. The only draw back was when we had an extreme weather event and the water ran back up the drain pipe to where the air con joined the down pipe and caused a leak. To fix it we had to put a large hole in our internal wall to access the down pipe. We've been there 4 years and so far this is the only problem.

following, had the same question to my builder! by the way, I think we are your neighbours on your right facing the golf course

The CCTV solution is nice technological fix but why not avoid the inevitable issue of your box gutter failing and redesign the roof?

Without having the plans, elevations and levels I would suggest that falling the roof away from the viewer in your image would allow you to collect the roof water on the (western??) side. There are ways to hide a gutter without hiding it inside your building and I personally think that one or two elegantly detailed downpipes can add to the quality of a building, why hide the obvious need to get water off a roof?

Also, I would be very surprised if your architect doesn't already have a solution to this, it is a basic requirement of design.

We are currently building a house and have decided to make a feature out of the downpipes. We have chosen Austral charcol bricks and silver roof and down pipes for an industrial design.

Thank you all for comments, we now have modified windows and are putting louvers on north and south aspects. So 2 fake pillars will run as internal down pipes under floor and into water tanks below garage. i have posted a update with fly around video of this in Before and After section. We had to 3d cad to get this thru council.45 birkdale