The government is pushing ahead with plans to make every home have a water metre.
The quickest way to keep your water bills down is to fit a water butt and store the huge amounts of rain that usually falls on UK gardens during the winter .
You can buy a water butt from most garden centres or DIY stores or collect rainwater in any watertight receptacle .
Here are ten key things to consider:
1.A water butt can be plastic or wooden but try to buy one made from recycled materials
2.To make the most of your butt, connect it to the downpipe from your guttering
3.Many water butts come with a simple connection kit and it is really easy to do
4 Some have a tap at the bottom of the barrel which makes it easy to fill a watering can or fix a hose.
5.If your barrel doesn’t have a tap, you’ll have to scoop water out from the top
6.A lid or fine mesh will stop leaves and small animals from falling in
7.You don’t want to feed your garden guests in one place and drown them in another
8.Sometimes algae grows in the water, but avoid using chemicals to get rid of it as they won’t be good for wildlife.
9.You can scoop it out by hand, or even empty the whole lot every now and then and give it a good scrub.
10.If you don’t put a lid on your butt, remove leaves and twigs regularly and put in a plank so that animals can climb out.
Next time there’s a hosepipe ban and not a cloud in the sky, your garden will thank you for a good soaking of natural rainwater plus your water bills will be less!
February 19th, 2011 at 8:01 am
Is your butt big enough?
I remember reading and/or hearing that effective watering requires approximately 1 gallon of water per square yard, lets say 7L per square metre. In the middle of dry weather I suspect you need more than this, especially for vegetables.
Another reference I came across recommended 40L per square metre for Mediterranean climates. Cripes, that’s a lot of watering cans.
Your average butt size, which Joe/Jane public seems to buy is roughly around the 200ltr size. I would suspect that small gardens/wallets would attract 100ltr butts, while 300-500ltr butts/tanks go to larger gardens/budgets.
So how much garden will the ‘average’ 200ltr butt water?
Well, 28.6 square metres at 7ltr per square metre, and a mere 5 square metres at 40ltr per square metre. Yikes!!!
Now, 28.6 square metres is a patch of ground roughly 5.3m x 5.3m or, in old money, 17.3′ x 17.3′; a couple of borders and a vege patch. 5 square metres would be 16.25′ x 3.25′.
In a British drought (or our occasional hot summer) we approach or exceed Mediterranean temperatures, with many weeks being rainless.
Grim. One 200ltr butt isn’t going to last more than about a day or week.
So what can we do?
One measure is, naturally, to have more and larger butts; and there are some truly gargantuan butts out there! However I have a number of issues with this
1. They are very expensive.
2. Many people just haven’t the room to install them
3. They are incredibly environmentally unfriendly, being made of plastic, even if recycled.
1 and 3 can be addressed in part by making, essentially a pond; I have seen designs for raised version – essentially substantial slats of wood, supported vertically in a circle, with a liner.
3 is difficult, even with my way around it; except to have underground tanks.
So what else can be done?
1. Well, there have been many discussions of using grey water, and it should be used. This will supplement your butt size.
2. You’ll have to be selective in what you water: Don’t water the lawn, it will come back stronger; Plant drought resistant plants, and only water those being less resistant; Maybe only reserve water for vegetables; Mulch like crazy, and water into buried pipes/plastic bottles which deliver the water directly to the roots, etc, etc.
A water butt is useful, almost mandatory, but I hope from my simplistic calculations you see that you may need far more water butts than that single 200ltr or so example sitting next to the wall.
Me? I’d go for the raised one built out of salvaged materials. Turn it into a feature. When we have lots of rain, perhaps grow watercress in it.
Interestingly I came across this 210L water butt. Seemingly a great bargain. However, I wouldn’t know what grade or thickness of plastic is used or if it if UV stabilised. Caveat emptor!
http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0101019
MadmcFungus
February 19th, 2011 at 8:42 am
Correction: The line
3 is difficult, even with my way around it; except to have underground tanks.
should say
2 is difficult, even with my way around it; except to have underground tanks.
MadmcFungus
February 19th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
We have 2 500 litre rainwater butts, in a Mediterranean climate. I reserve that water for pots, and acid loving plants that don’t like grey water. Over about two years, I have almost made it last thru the summer.
February 19th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
You might be interested to know that there are 700 litre water butts on sale for £249.00 and a huge 1600 litre water butt for only £306.99 at http://www.SimplyWaterButts.co.uk
I have just bought the 700 litre and am going to bury to put it behind my shed – problem solved!
Apparently, you can also bury these in the garden
George
February 19th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
The other place to harvest rainwater is your greenhouse. When i researched this some suppliers offer special rainwater collectiion kits to fit their greenhouses. These guys offer them: http://www.blueworldgardener.co.uk/store/index.php?cPath=345. I thought it sounded like a good idea to start as i meant to go on!
keith