Anyone using a rainwater harvesting system?

ey143

I'm considering installing either a bore hole in my garden or using a rainwater harvesting system. The latter is where a 1500+ litre tank is buried in the garden (during a rennovation / extension) and the down pipes are connected to this system.

The system then pumps the water in to a separate tank to feed toilets and other non drinking taps.

Does anyone have one of these, could I please have some positive and negative feedback including overall running costs of the pump or maintenance etc.

Also if they use it to fill up their toilet cistern, does the water appear clear or slightly of colour, even if filtered?

Thanks.

Lancastrian

Hi.

Have a look on the Navitron website, go to forums (at the top) then scroll down to Rainwater harvesting Etc.

Lots and lots of info from actual users. Great site.

Good luck.

ey143

Lancastrian - thanks will take a look.

Adminas - because I'm on a water meter and not unmetered supply and because a lot of people in new houses or even old houses where previous vendors switched to water meter and is now forced onto new owners.

lstar337

ey143 wrote: »

Lancastrian - thanks will take a look.

Adminas - because I'm on a water meter and not unmetered supply and because a lot of people in new houses or even old houses where previous vendors switched to water meter and is now forced onto new owners.

Unless the house was built with the meter, you can ask for it to be removed and go back to rateable billing.

WestonDave

I've briefly looked into it in the past but the cost of putting in the tank wasn't worthwhile for the savings on the water bill. Bear in mind that you won't save your whole bill - just the portion used for flushing toilets and maybe a washing machine. (They don't generally feed any taps due to the risk of someone drinking it say if its a bathroom tap).


However if you are having work done anyway so that the cost of excavating out for the tank becomes incidental to the extension etc then the economics may change. You still need to do the maths carefully - my metered water bill for a family of 4 is around £35 per month. If you assume you'll save half of that (which is generous) you'd save about £200 per year its going to take 7 years just to pay for the price of a relatively small 3000litre outdoor tank, before you factor in some cost for additional excavation, more for additional plumbing etc.

WestonDave

To pick up your other point - for a bore hole you'd need to check you have water extraction rights attached to your title deeds. Depending on the property many have that right signed over to the relevant water company - I know I'd have Wessex on my doorstep if I started tapping into their groundwater sources!

ey143

Latar337 - I thought the same too and asked previous vendors to switch back to unmetered before we completed and they did. However water company insisted (and its on their website) that new vendors to a property are forced into metering once its in place (the meter is never removed).

As it happens I'm on an unmetered supply due to the customer service incorrectly putting me on the wrong supply rate but as my rateable charge is quite high (£650 pa) and there's only 2 adults and a baby (for now) and we wont be living there for a year because of renovation, I figured we might have a water harvesting system or a bore hole for longer term savings due to the extensive building work we will be doing.

someguystu

Our metered rate in our flat is about 40% less than the unmetered rate for the bungalow were moving into (having bought). Obviously the new builds flat is going to be more efficient than the bungalow. But once we replace the toilet I imagine usage will start to be similar.

So I'm looking at going straight onto a meter for the bungalow. As well as replacing with a more efficient toilet, I want to harvest rainwater for the toilet. I've seen a number of ways of doing this with plumbing, water butts, filters, charcoal and modified dual inlet cistern (or manual switches) with varying degrees of dodginess. Seems this is a good way to save money as the setup is minimal and it doesn't need a pump to run. Can easily keep mains and rain water separate too. Not sure building control would be too happy about some systems.

From what I've seen of the big storage tanks setups, the installation is expensive and you have to run a pump and do some modificationsto your internal plumbing. So yes eco friendly but you would be talking years before it paid off.

anotherbaldrick

Rainwater harvesting is storage of rainwater which is free. It does however necessitate an auxiliary connection from the water Companies main to allow for topping up during periods of draught ( can anyone remember draught ) for which the WC may well make an additional charge

ey143

There is an electronic mechanism correct, in which a sensor in the tank tells a control unit to fill up a smaller tank in the loft which supplies only the toilets in the house, to prevent them from going dry. That will be billed as per the water meter automatically if that mechanism kicks in.