Water butt offer

Mr.Generous

Finally having gone for a water meter I have decided to add a water butt so I can water the plants without sweating about the cost.

Having trawled Amazon and Ebay pricing up components I saw this offer at Wickes, Complete kit including butt for £20. Normal price is £30. Its cheaper than anything online I could find an no waiting for a pesky delivery.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Compact-Water-Butt-Rain-Saver-Kit-100L/p/189593

Is 100 ltrs big enough??

pogofish

Are you using it as head for power generation?

If not, the home forum might be the better place to ask?

Mr.Generous

Sorry I just saw water included in the forum and thought that as its an idea to cut bills the utility section was suitable.

EachPenny

Mr.Generous wrote: »

Is 100 ltrs big enough??

It depends how many plants you want to water, or how much electricity you want to generate

The limiting factor is more likely to be whether you get rainfall to refill the waterbutt at the times when you need to do most watering. If there is no rainfall then you can never have enough storage capacity, sooner or later you will run out.

I would go with the £20 offer - if you find it isn't adequate for your needs then you can buy another, the first one will still be useful by adding 100l to your total storage capacity.

One thing I would do is not to use the cheap plastic tap that comes supplied with most water butts. These invariably break or get blocked up, and as the valve mechanism involves a 90 degree turn they are near impossible to unblock without first draining all your precious water out.

Instead of the tap I use a plastic tank overflow connector (see Toolstaion code 29453) with the threaded end on the outside. The thread should be the standard size (check before leaving the store!) used for tap hose connectors like Toolstation's item 16793. This then allows you to connect a length of hose to the water butt for easier watering with less risk of tap breakage or blockage. You may need to trim the threaded end of the tank connector as the first part may not have a thread, and you might want to get some extra washers (item 88106) unless you happen to have some old washing machine hoses laying around in the garage.

To control the water flow you can either store the hose with the outlet end higher than the water butt, or use a waterstop hose connector at the outlet end, or buy a hose stop valve of a similar type sold on A****n with code B00ADN2G2Y.

The advantage of having a length of hose (even a short bit) between the butt and the valve is the hose can be 'kinked' to stop the water flow allowing the valve to be removed and cleaned if it does get blocked. Having a hose connection rather than the cheap standard tap also means you can set your butt up to do drip watering of your plants when you go on holiday.

(no endorsement of any product intended, product codes supplied only to aid identification items described )

mrgaz

we have about 1300ltr capacity water butts around our house and at times these will all be empty.