Anybody out there tearing their hair out with this hosepipe ban. A week ago I had so much rainwater I was tipping it down the stormdrains in the street. This weekend I find my waterbutts are half empty, (Tree Ferns and Bananas are greedy drinkers). Things may get interesting if Thames Water imposes a drought order!
To Rain Or Not To Rain.
Yes, I've just bought 2 x 500l tanks to store water in as we have a ban and are on a meter as well. We're lucky to have a well fed by a spring, but it comes through slowly and erratically. The best strategy is to pump it from the well and store it so it's there when needed.
I'm also trying to fix up guttering etc so I can collect as much as possible from the heavy thunder showers we often get
Must get some more butts!
Fortunately the North of England has full reservoirs, so no drought up here, but I still have plenty of water butts. Those things which link them together seem a good idea so you have the downpipe filling the first one and then when it's full it flows in to the next one and so on.
I remember the last real drought in 1976 (aren't I old!) when I rigged up a baby bath to catch the 'grey' water from the sink to water my plants. I don't have a dish washer, but wonder if the chemicals in the waste water from that would upset the plants - don't they have quite a lot of salt in them? I can remember trying to reduce the washing up liquid enough to get the pots clean without leaving greasy water for the plants. I must say I felt rather cruel watering them with it, but it didn't kill anything off.
Baa
Jun 04, 2006
I'm not sure if we have a ban or not at the moment, if not then it's imminent, they've put some standpipes in already. We had some droughts in 1991/1992 or there abouts, not quite using standpipes then but it was a close thing.
We're lucky here, for some reason, (not sure of technicalities !!..) there are no problems as of yet with water.Something to do with our water being stored deep down.. I think