Water Butt - financially worth it or not?

cowship

Ignore the environmental conversation for the minute (before i get shot down).

Is a water but financially a sensible investment. I am on a water meter with wessex water cost is £2 for 1000 litre. See wessex water charges page ( as a new user i cannot post links)

Water butt of reasonable size 350 - 400L costs over £100, (i deem smaller ones useless as for most of the summer when you need them they are empty).

Surely if we just focus on the financial this would take years to become cost effective (probably longer than the life of the water butt) - or have a misjudged something :mad:?

Chris

Norman_Castle

It depends how many litres per year you use. Have you included the waste water cost in your £2 / 1000 cost?.

cowship

Waste would add £1.70 per 1000L. Not sure how much we will use as first summer in new house

Norman_Castle

http://www.evengreener.com/Shop/Best_Selling_Water_Butts/RSVRDBKIT_Rainsaver_190_litre_Water_Butt_Double_Kit.html

Search this site for offers in your area.

Southend1

Norman_Castle wrote: »

It depends how many litres per year you use. Have you included the waste water cost in your £2 / 1000 cost?.

It also depends how long the water butt would last and whether there is any maintenance cost. I expect 20 years plus without maintenance is realistic.

cowship

Ok, i could get the butts for slightly cheaper. Still if I imagine I use x10 10L watering cans per week for 6 months of the year on my garden this would use about 2,500 litres of water, this would cost £9.25 per year. I would still take 4 years to be cost effective with the cheapest water butt (or am i missing something??)

Norman_Castle

Assuming the butt lasts 20 years the saving per year will increase due to price rises. There is also the potential to sell the water butt if you move home during the projected lifespan returning some of the initial outlay.:)

Cardew

The idea is to fill it with a hose from a neighbour's unmetered supply.

lstar337

Cardew wrote: »

The idea is to fill it with a hose from a neighbour's unmetered supply.

I wonder if there is somebody out there with an unmetered supply, selling to neighbours and undercutting the water company.:D

It's got to be happening somewhere!

I wonder what kind of penalty would be handed out if they were caught!
I'm guessing they may be forced to have a metered supply!

Mojisola

cowship wrote: »

Surely if we just focus on the financial this would take years to become cost effective (probably longer than the life of the water butt) - or have a misjudged something :mad:?

Hard to judge the financial value of this but, it is nice to know that if your water is suddenly cut off (broken pipe, etc), you have a supply of water to flush the toilets with.

Cardew

Originally Posted by Cardew
The idea is to fill it with a hose from a neighbour's unmetered supply.

lstar337 wrote: »

I wonder if there is somebody out there with an unmetered supply, selling to neighbours and undercutting the water company.:D

It's got to be happening somewhere!

I wonder what kind of penalty would be handed out if they were caught!
I'm guessing they may be forced to have a metered supply!

Undoubtedly there will be people using their neighbour's hose on the garden.


Indeed it wouldn't take much effort for a pair of semi-detached or adjacent terrace houses to have a pipe running to the cold water tank of the metered house!