Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Metal Roof Water Source

Pondmeisters,

I am currently in the final stages of a 2 acre pond construction project and am debating whether or not to use our 3 large metal roofed outbuildings as a watershed for the pond. I would be trenching some pipe from the buildings to the pond to accomplish this project. Probably 500 or so feet by the time it's all done. As currently constructed the pond will be fed by 1 field tile running under a 500 ft.long waterway (drains appx. 25 acres of row cropped fields) and the watershed from our 9 acre property.
2 buildings have existing gutters, 1 does not. The total SQFT of the 3 roofs is appx. 25-30,000. I have the following questions:

Would most of the water I would be routing to the pond manually have gotten there eventually anyway? (The entire property slopes toward the pond.)
If not, will this system generate enough "extra" water to justify the expense.
Are there any unforseen issues I am not thinking of?

I'm sure I am leaving out some needed info here, but I am just looking for some direction from those here who have tried something similar.

Thanks again all

The buildings cover about 5/8 of an acre. If the pond needs water, then any water you can direct to it will help. Any water that falls onto the ground or runs onto the ground will soak into the ground and *maybe* run to the pond. If you run pipes to the gutters you know that all the water from the buildings will make it to the pond.

I know it's not a difinitive answer, but I hope it helps a little.

Just found a cool conversion chart for the runoff efficiency for different surface types. Seems like a metal roof is about 5x more efficient at delivering water runoff than a lawn. Decisions Decisions...

Wasn't sure of the linkage protocol here, but it's a pretty cool tool for anyone thinking of doing this. I guess anyone interested could fairly easily type in "calculating runoff volume" into a search engine and find it.