Rainwater harvesting

rubix_76

moggins wrote:

You can alter the guttering so the downpipe comes down in a different spot, we did this last year when the downpipe was coming down right outside the back door well away from the drain, now we're thinking of moving it again to feed into a water butt, we already have two in the garden. I half emptied one watering the garden on Sunday, now it's full again.

Don't mean to brag :j but I have 3 water butts and will be getting a fourth soon, and I need to set up an overflow system as I have to empty them (down the drain) as the water is just pouring out of the top doh' not very green eh !!!

apples1

Where is the best place to buy a water butt & how much do they cost? Is there a site with simple guidelines on how to alter guttering etc to "fit it"? Does it mean spoiling the guttering to do it? Have been thinking of doing this ready for summer to save money on water for the garden. We have heavy duty (cast iron?) guttering.

troll35

I could get a small butt to collect the rainwater that comes off our side porch. Due to the design of the house I cannot think of any logical or cheap way of collecting the water off the main roof. There is nowhere to put a butt without blocking an entrance. If we altered the position of the downflow pipes we would have to dig out and add new underground drains.

woollyjumper

I got my waterbutt from a local garden shop - who get recycled containers which had orange juice, soya sauce in etc. Various sizes from 70 litres (£6) up to 1200 litres ( 2 metres tall approx.) (£70). cost is very good. I got a 220 litre container for £8 - no tap or holes (do it yourself). Or you could buy the tap and hole for inlet from downpipe for £15.
Place is called Apple & Pear in Hoveton, Norfolk. No mail order just the traditional buy and take home yourself.

Collecting rainwater - reading the literature on some of the sites won't cover a washing machine going on three times a day..

Basically need to shove a big tank in the garden (companies usually but them underground), that gets filled from filtered rainwater. The water is then pumped to a tank in the loft - new pipe is then laid to the toilets and the washing machine to use the new header tank. So if doing a new build great - if you have existing pipework - likelyhood is the same pipe is feeding your taps in the bathroom as the toilet.
There is another thread on this forum that explained it with costs.

bridiej

Wig wrote:

I

It would be nice to be able to collect shower water aswell but this would be difficult requiring an underground tank and a pump, up to the storage tank.

You need to be careful about storing water used in things like showers, laundry etc as it can breed all sorts of nasty bugs. It's also not recommended to use such water in sprinklers or hoses either..... I know there are laws against that here becuase it can be quite nasty. And you should use that type of water on any food plants either.

I am really keen to reuse rain water as there is a water shortage here although you'd never know seeing the amount that gets wasted on people watering their gardens with sprinklers!! (they have no ban here)
:rolleyes:

yds3

Morseman wrote:

I seem to remember hearing that, even if you store rainwater, you still cannot use a hosepipe to water your garden from your stored rainwater if there is a ban in force in your area.

Is that still the case?

Thanks.

--... ...--
Morseman

Hello
The way round this is to connect a soaker hosepipe or weeping watering system round the plants or veggies and this is perfectly OK to do and recommended by the enviromental agency.

yds3

apples1 wrote:

Where is the best place to buy a water butt & how much do they cost? Is there a site with simple guidelines on how to alter guttering etc to "fit it"? Does it mean spoiling the guttering to do it? Have been thinking of doing this ready for summer to save money on water for the garden. We have heavy duty (cast iron?) guttering.

Hello
I have the same problem, cast iron guttering and downpipes, I don`t want to replace with pvc as this is not good for the environment. So the option is to use aliumium (bad spelling) and instead of replacing all of the downpipe, just replace a section. Ally is easy to cut so a rain diverter can be fitted. Ally downpipes can be sourced from screwfixdirect and ally can be recycled.

tik33

There is a way to re-use greywater - I saw a company offer a system at an exhibition recently - it's basically a filter connected to a storage tank with a WC and a pump attached. All this stuff is better if you're building from scratch or refurbing so that you can design it in. However at 1900 it seemed pricey to me. Water butts seem very useful - but ugly! It would be nice to bury the tank and have it connected to an irrigation system. You can use rainwater for lots of stuff, but a lot of it needs to be UV sterilised - I saw HansGrohe to a lovely 3 part sterilisation tank - it's the sort of thing that Germans have been using for years.

Also, remember that not only will your water bill go down, but your sewarage should go down - I read that the sewerage rate is based on the amount of water you use.

gromituk

yds3 wrote:

I have the same problem, cast iron guttering and downpipes, I don`t want to replace with pvc as this is not good for the environment.

You might find that your cast iron is getting a bit tired. In the case of downpipes, they tend to rust through at the back where they're often not painted properly. In any case, you don't have to replace the gutters if you want to replace a downpipe in order to fit a water butt adaptor.

Rainwater goods are not made from PVC anyway - they use different types of plastic I think. Yes, this represents an environmental cost, but a very small one considering it's a one-off installation which lasts for decades. The savings you make on using less purified and pumped tap water will soon cover the materials.

apples1

We have to keep the cast iron guttering/ down pipes. Its a listed building and we are not allowed the plastic ones.