Water Butt - financially worth it or not?

lstar337

Cardew wrote: »

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!

Exactly what I was thinking, and virtually impossible for a water company to detect!

All I can find online about re-selling water is that it must be at a fair price, can't see anything that says you can't do it.

Thinking of the neighbours hose, I just bought a paddling pool for our little one and would love to fill up on our neighbours hose, sadly we are all on meters as they are all new builds.

audigex

You can get 100 litre water butts for £8 if you're willing to wait and keep an eye out for them - they often turn up in Aldi/Lidl towards the end of summer. 4 of them makes your 400 litres of storage £32, not £100

ChiefGrasscutter

Fundamentally the OP is correct.
The problem is that mains water is too cheap - and remember the amount of filtering, purifying whatever it has gone though before it gets to you.

As the tank size increases the costs mount up very considerably as the tank has to be stronger and stronger to contain the amount of water.

....and this is why those houses without a mains water supply relying on wells/boreholes and springs plus storage tanks are willing to pay huge sums of money to get a mains water supply to the house. Particularly when you factor in the costs of the regular inspections, equipment repair and replacement and the rest.

Cardew

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

The problem is that mains water is too cheap

Well if that is the case, one might ask why have shares in Water Companies consistently outperformed the stock market average and have been a target for foreign investors.


Despite having a Regulator(Ofwat) with power that it uses, it is a simple fact that the water companies have a monopoly in their catchment area and are in a win/win situation.