I was involved in an eco house in Wales in about 1980 (I was doing solar heating and hot water) and this was the method for rain water down pipes, it worked well with light rain, and in the video you can see the capilliary action on the chain links, but with more rain, not that heavy realy, gravity takes over, and you can see this in the video as well,water splashes everywhere on the ground, and it is impractical to have any kind of "dog leg" traditional downpipes were substituted before the build finished, but HEY! my invention for solar hot water is still working today, I thought of it and implemented it, it is now shown in "The Self Build Book" author Brian Richardson and Jon Broome and there is an error that means it wont work, I was not consulted when this book was written and would have helped gladly, but very pleased to say that that prototype is still wortking 40 odd years later, is almost maintenace free and provides gallons and gallons of free hot water for about 8 months of the year, with the remaining time fed by wood fire, and no mixing complications, I wish I had patented my ideas, as they are now common. The 20 or aso that I did were quite lucrative at the time though, the centre for alternative technolodgy were also involved
CLEM