Detect multiple rectangles in image

I am trying to detect the count of pipes in this picture. For this, I'm using OpenCV and Python-based detection. Based, on existing answers to similar questions, I was able to come up with the following steps

1. Open the image
2. Filter it
3. Apply Edge Detection
4. Use Contours
5. Check for the count

After applying the filter

import cv2
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

img = cv2.imread('images/input-rectpipe-1.jpg')
blur_hor = cv2.filter2D(img[:, :, 0], cv2.CV_32F, kernel=np.ones((11,1,1), np.float32)/11.0, borderType=cv2.BORDER_CONSTANT)
blur_vert = cv2.filter2D(img[:, :, 0], cv2.CV_32F, kernel=np.ones((1,11,1), np.float32)/11.0, borderType=cv2.BORDER_CONSTANT)
mask = ((img[:,:,0]>blur_hor*1.2) | (img[:,:,0]>blur_vert*1.2)).astype(np.uint8)*255

I get this masked image

This looks fairly accurate in terms of the number of visible rectangles it shows. However, when I try to take the count and plot the bounding box on top of the picture, it picks a lot of unwanted regions as well. For circles, HoughCircles has a way of defining the max and min radius. Is there something similar for rectangles that can improve accuracy. Also, I'm open to suggestions for alternative approaches to this problem.

ret,thresh = cv2.threshold(mask,127,255,0)
contours,hierarchy = cv2.findContours(thresh, 1, 2)

count = 0

for i in range(len(contours)):

  count = count+1
  x,y,w,h = cv2.boundingRect(contours[i]) 
  rect = cv2.minAreaRect(contours[i])
  area = cv2.contourArea(contours[i])
  box = cv2.boxPoints(rect)
  ratio = w/h
  M = cv2.moments(contours[i])

  if M["m00"] == 0.0:
         cX = int(M["m10"] / 1 )
         cY = int(M["m01"] / 1 )

  if M["m00"] != 0.0:
    cX = int(M["m10"] / M["m00"])
    cY = int(M["m01"] / M["m00"])

  if (area > 50 and area < 220 and hierarchy[0][i][2] < 0 and (ratio > .5 and ratio < 2)):
    #cv2.rectangle(img, (x,y), (x+w,y+h), (0,255,0), 2)
    cv2.circle(img, (cX, cY), 1, (255, 255, 255), -1)
    count = count + 1 



print(count)

cv2.imshow("m",mask)
cv2.imshow("f",img)
cv2.waitKey(0)

UPDATE Based on the second answer I have converted the c++ code to python code and got closer results but still missing out on a few obvious rectangles.

from Detect multiple rectangles in image