Water Butts….waste of money?

tomstickland

I bought recycled tank from here http://www.smithsofthedean.co.uk/

oops_a_daisy

I have contacted my council and they came back with this - much better on the purse I think I have removed the names but thought I would put the details here just in case anybody else in the area is after one. Stockton on Tees is the centre of the universe dont you know

Dear
Thank you for your email. At our environment centre on West Row in Stockton (next to Boyes) we sell water butts, which are 200l in capacity.They are sold at the price which purchase them, and are available for £15. There is also a stand available, which is £10, if you buy the two together the price is £22.50.

Our environment centre is open Monday to Thursday 9-4pm and until 3.30pm on a friday.

Regards


Customer Service and Support Officer
Development and Neighbourhood Service
Care for Your Area Services
Environment Centre
21 West Row
STOCKTON-ON-TEES
TS18 1BT

Wig

ravenlighte wrote:

Hi, just thought I would mention...the government has some grants available for those interested in solar panels, PV and such like. They will reimburse up to 50% (last I heard) of your costs, but you have to use their registered list of companies.

I looked into solar power in early 2005, and the grants available were nowhere near 50% more like 10%, IIRC upto 50% was available in the first phase, dunno when it ended. In 2005 they were into the second phase, and the grant was about 10%. Totally inviable. IIRC there was a 50% grant available last year to organisations running eco projects such as Machynlleth Centre for Alternative Technology. So I definately missed the boat. But see my post below this one.

Wig

tik33 wrote:

2. One PV seller on their website wasn't an approved distributor/retailer and didn't have the grants applicable but gave an interesting bit of spin on the grants system. They said (and I don't have enough knowledge to know whether this is true or not), that to get their kit tested would cost so much that the final price of the equipment with the grant would end up costing more than it does at the moment! Who knows whether this is right or not?

I can easily believe that was the case with the solar power grants because of what I know of the LPG grants.

LPG conversion grants for cars were available to give you 50% off if you used their approved fitters. You were charged about 2,500 - 3,000 pounds and got 50% back, however you could get a conversion done elsewhere for 1,200 outside of the grant approved scheme. Later on, the prices for conversion came down to 800 pounds in my area. Also all the tax benefits on LPG cars by the DVLA or the LCC were/are only available to cars converted by approved installers or fitted from new (see below).

In order to be approved as a fitter, you had to submit a car you had converted. the cost of the inspection was something like 1,500 pounds per car submitted. Once submitted you were then only approved as a fitter for that specific model of car, eg Volkswagen Passat using the specific conversion kit used on the presented car. If you wanted to do a vauxhall Omega you had to present a vauxhall omega for testing...costing another 1,000 - 1,500 pounds. I think the fitters may have been allowed to present the customers car, but if it failed the test they did not give the grant to the customer.

You can see from this that the government grant scheme was really just a pile of !#$! The government didn't lose hardly any money, the only time the government lost money was when a fitter was lucky enough to convert 2 or more of the same car, which some did because they converted the "sold as new" cars for Vauxhall - the so-called "factory fitted" myth that is spread about is a nonsense because they are converted by power shift approved installers who were incidentally raking in the money from the grant scheme.

Wig

Water butts:

A lot in this thread complaining that water butts are too expensive, that's because they are!

I use blue barrels I currently have 3, found 1 on a tip, paid 3 quid ea. for the other two from a local bodger, who no doubt gets them free from local sources. I was happy to pay him 3 quid ea. as I needed them now and didn't have time to find a free source locally.

You can find them free from food industries in your local area, phone them up and ask if they have blue barrels or IBC tanks they don't want.

IBC tanks hold 1000 litres, I saw 10 sell on ebay the other day for 50 quid.


Other thread topics seems to be how to use rainwater for toilets. I will eventually have a couple of IBC tanks linked directly to my toilet which is on the ground floor, outside the ground level is behind a retaining wall about 5 feet high, so the IBC tanks will sit there quite happily and be above the toilet so filling the toilet shouldn't be a problem.

margaretclare

Hi

Rainwater for showers and washing-machines - why not?

Going back to my childhood in the 1940s, we had water-butts outside the back door, and every drop of water was carried indoors, heated in a pan on the fire, and used for washing, washing-up, washing hair etc. Needless to say we didn't have a bathroom then!! For the weekly wash, my mother would fill up the copper which was in an outhouse, and that was filled with rainwater too. She'd fill it up in the evening and light a fire under it the following morning.

We did have one cold tap after 1938, but that was really only used for drinking and cooking.

The rainwater butts had lids on them because in the days of coal fires, the lids were to keep the soot from the chimney from falling into them.

With modern technology it should be possible to use rainwater efficiently without all the back-breaking labour of filling manually.

BTW we've had a rainwater butt attached to the shed for some years now. We use it for watering plants and for topping-up the wildlife pond in periods of dry weather. I recently bought a second one to attach to the downpipe at the back of the house - this will be useful for watering the tubs and containers on the patio at the back. We live in one of the driest areas of the country and I haven't really thought whether it's cost-effective, just that I wanted to do it. It will save me labour carrying water from the lower water-butt up to the patio, and there are 2 not 1, in case 1 runs dry and we can't use hosepipes.

Margaret Clare

gromituk

Note that it is very easy to attach more than one water butt to one downpipe, if you have the space and the rainfall. You can get connectors and flexible tube as is used with rainwater diverters, with which you connect two butts together at their bases.

bargainaddict

Wig wrote:

Water butts:

A lot in this thread complaining that water butts are too expensive, that's because they are!

I use blue barrels I currently have 3, found 1 on a tip, paid 3 quid ea. for the other two from a local bodger, who no doubt gets them free from local sources. I was happy to pay him 3 quid ea. as I needed them now and didn't have time to find a free source locally.

You can find them free from food industries in your local area, phone them up and ask if they have blue barrels or IBC tanks they don't want.

IBC tanks hold 1000 litres, I saw 10 sell on ebay the other day for 50 quid.
Other thread topics seems to be how to use rainwater for toilets. I will eventually have a couple of IBC tanks linked directly to my toilet which is on the ground floor, outside the ground level is behind a retaining wall about 5 feet high, so the IBC tanks will sit there quite happily and be above the toilet so filling the toilet shouldn't be a problem.

Hi, what is an IBC tank please, would a chip shop have them? Thanks

Gillylou

gromituk -

This would minimise the energy wasted in the column of water running back down into the reservoir once the pump is switched off.

Install a non-return valve immediately downstream of the pump, and the column of water in the riser main to the cistern will remain full of water.

gromituk

Unfortunately I can't do that, because it would no longer be protected against freezing. I would also like to minimise the number of valves that can block and leak!