Who has a butt?!!

sammiboo

As mentioned in a previous post I am going to be moving house very soon.

I am moving to a house with a garden :j

My OH and I have been looking into getting a water butt. We bought one for his parents and they love it.

Does anyone here have one and has it made any impact on your water bills?

Thanks

Shambler

We are just moving to our first house together too!

We plan on having at least one butt, maybe 3! for watering the garden, the more the merrier!

Also we want to collect 'grey' water i.e. water from the bath and sink for watering the garden.

This must have quite an effect on the water bill as a whole.

There will be no buts about saving water then! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

arkonite_babe

The following theads may be of use to you.......

The great use less water hunt

Water butt, a waste of money??

Rainwater harvesting

Alternativly, just type water butt in the search bar at the top of the forum page to check all the old threads.


HTH

Cardew

sammiboo wrote: »

As mentioned in a previous post I am going to be moving house very soon.

I am moving to a house with a garden :j

My OH and I have been looking into getting a water butt. We bought one for his parents and they love it.

Does anyone here have one and has it made any impact on your water bills?

Thanks

The cost of a cubic meter(1,000 litres) of water averages less than £2 when you include sewerage costs.

I depends on your roof/gutters and rainfall of course how much you will collect in the course of a year; but I suspect it will take a considerably time to save the cost of buying the butt(s).

There are mixed opinions on the merits of using 'grey' water on gardens.

davetrousers

Watch Outrageous Wasters tonight on BBC3 at 9pm (i think) on that they collect the grey water used by the family then add a bit of urine collected from the toilet, and then use it to fertilise (Nitrogen) the vegetable patch.

SaverSarah_2

OMG our water butt makes a HUGE impact on our water bills. We were really lucky to move to a house that already had one, as well as an outside tap, and we've never once used the tap! We have a medium-sized garden and the water butt is all we use to water it, daily. When the level gets low just one heavy shower fills it to the brim, it's ace, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Also, we live in Gloucestershire and because of the floods in our neighbouring area we were without a water supply for two weeks at the start of August. Our neighbours were having to traipse to the water bowsers to fill huge containers to flush their loos... we just used the water from the butt to flush the toilets and didn't once need to visit the water bowsers.

Go for it!

sammiboo

Thank you all for your replies.

Overall it seems positive and definately worth a go.

Will have to start looking into the range of butts now and see what would suit us

cmrule

Check your local council - they sometimes do them at a discount. I've seen councils sell them £5 which includes the fittings for the downpipe. They often do compost bins/converters cheaply too (£8 from my local council). After all, its all about money saving! ;-)

ixwood

Look around and get some cheap. They can cost quite a bit new from rip off garden centres and the like. I just got 2 nice green ones off ebay for £15.

They are useful. Rainwater can be used for washing cars and other stuff like ponds.

I'm rigging mine up so they overflow into the pond and from there into a bog garden. It'll save me topping it up and keep the bog garden wet hopefully. I'll need a switch though so I don't flood the place during heavy rains.

If you put it high, you'll get good water pressure and will be able to run a hose. Much easier than a watering can.

ixwood

I raised mine easily with layers of bricks and slabs. It's sturdy and has little slab shelves underneath.

cmrule

you can also buy some battery operated pumps that fit on the butt/hose and increase the pressure enough to be able use the water through a hose pipe if you cant get it high enough.