Cheap alternative water butts

dori2o

I'm looking for alternatives to the standard water butt. They may seem to be reasonably priced but at £30 it's still a little too pricey for my liking. So what are the alternatives, what have other people used as a water butt?

A neighbour of mine suggested calling the council and telling them my slimline blue bin (paper/cardboard) had been stolen, then use the original/replacement as a water butt when it arrived, but I always thought that the bin remained the property of the council, and as the the water butt will be in plain view this is a risk I'd not like to take.

forgotmyname

Ebay, Free ads, Gumtree etc..

Ive picked several up for £5 or less.

£25 - £30 gets you a 1000L IBC tank if you have the space.

andrewf75

You have to be very lucky to pick them up for £5. The 200L ones go for 15-20 on there and you'll struggle to get one new for 30 as well!

RAS

Ask the Council if they have any old wheelie bins? Ours have allowed ones with broken wheels etc to be used for other purposes.

wellused

My allotment association have the big blue plastic tubs that have some kind of benign chemicals in for £3 bargain.

Elsewhere

Though I can't think of one off hand, is there some old household appliance that would be watertight and could be used as a butt?

We're currently using a broken chest freezer to store bark chippings and a couple of the round glass inserts from washing machine doors as large plant-pot saucers...:rotfl:

londonTiger

andrewf75 wrote: »

You have to be very lucky to pick them up for £5. The 200L ones go for 15-20 on there and you'll struggle to get one new for 30 as well!

yeah, what the point of selling it for just £5. You might as well just give it away on freecycle/free on gumtree.

I was just thinking what else you could use as a substitute for a water butt that has 200L+ capacity. Old bathtubs? unlikely there's probably £20 worth of scrap in there. Old wheely bin? posibly but you'l need to find a tap to fit into the bottom and that might cost you £10 from screwfix.

I think the best device is probably to use a water butt and see if you can get it from freecycle/gumtree. You need it elevated to 1-2ft high and taps fitted - a diy might not be sturdy on a DIY base and consume too much time to build as well.

I have a fish tank that holds 120L of water and built a table for it - they get very heavy.

demystified

wellused wrote: »

My allotment association have the big blue plastic tubs that have some kind of benign chemicals in for £3 bargain.

Yes thats right, fruit juice vats or something like that. Not sure where you'd get them these days.

cyclonebri1

We used to get them from work, 205 ltr Ex orange juice drums. They were a freebies as our company had to pay to get them taken away.

p34nut

my partner made one for me out of an old wheelie bin drilled a hole for a tap on the one side at the bottom with a small length of hose to fill my watering cans up, one at the top at the back with an over flow pipe to stop it from overfilling, and one in the top/lid for the drain pipe of my shed, it holds easily over 100l of free rain water. :beer:, all these bits where scavenged so cost nothing except time and patience.