Our garage has a gutter with a down pipe which goes straight into a water butt. The butt has no tap at the bottom, essentially it's just a big bucket with a cut-out bit in the lid for the down pipe.
It is continually overflowing - the concrete plinth it stands on is growing bubbly green algae, and it looks as though that corner of the garage may have suffered from long-term dampness (bricks looking a bit crumbly in places). It's against a north-facing wall, so I think it will be damp at the best of times, and it doesn't seem a good idea to have extra water collecting there.
Is it normal to have a downpipe that goes nowhere, and do we just have to be more diligent at emptying the water butt when it starts to overflow? The garage is separate from the house, so it's not possible to have the excess water diverted into a drain. From quickly googling, I think we could have a soakaway put in at the bottom of the down pipe, but not sure of the expense/practicality of doing that.
We need to replace the water butt anyway, as the lid is not childproof at all, so if possible we would like to improve the damp problem at the same time.
Can anyone advise?