Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Equipment Shed => Topic started by: SweetPea on May 28, 2006, 09:24
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Hi all,
After all the excitment of receiving my £4 compost bin, I had a look about on 'tinternet for a similar water butt offer. Yorkshire Water are offering a complete water butt for £34.95, details here (http://www.trycomposting.peppercart.net/yw/index2.htm)
We have a couple of water butts in our garden left by the previous tenants, but I'm still tempted :D
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Doesn't seem too much of a bargain to me - I was in Bridgemere garden centre yesterday and they had a butt and stand for 39.99. They're not known for their cheapness either.
I did get an amazing cloche/ tent thingy for 19.99 - will photograph that later today. I hope.
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I bought two water butts and stands from B&Q last year. I can't remember the price but it must have been a lot less than £35 cuz I wouldn't have parted with 70 quid to catch some water from the greenhouse!
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I bought two water butts and stands from B&Q last year. I can't remember the price but it must have been a lot less than £35 cuz I wouldn't have parted with 70 quid to catch some water from the greenhouse!
Are those the ones with your initials monogrammed in gold leaf on them :)
You'd think these water companies would be subsidising water butts to save the precious stuff in this terrible drought we're suffering.
I mean it's so bad I have to go six inches down on the plot to hit running water .
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I agree the water companies should be bit more encouraging with their water butt prices. I got a B&Q one (210L) with stand for about £34 and I'm thinking of putting in a siphon system round the plot using blue barrels if I can get one or two, if not, dustbins.
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Hi noshed.
Got any idea where you would got to get some of those blue barrels I could do with some.
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According to my plot neighbours you can get them from a scrap yard near our council depot - they charge £6. I haven't had time to get down there when they're open yet but they do have loads piled up against their fence. So that would be one idea - ring round a few scrap yards.
I have seen some loafing about an industrial estate I have to go to sometimes - so that might be another possible source. Apparently they're used for fruit juice and things so you could try food processing places. Just check on what the previous contents have been - plutonium would not be wise.
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Just got 2 blue barrels 45 gallons each. :D
My old man reads meters for a living, and he got talking to some guy in his house, he had seen a water butt in his garden on the way in and asked where he had got it from, this guy said he had had got it from his work.
My dad explained that i had an allotment and was in need of some of these barrels, so the guy took our phone number and said he would call if any more came up.
No phone call, he got the house number somehow (bit creepy) and just turned up tonight with 2 of them.
He didn't want anything for them but i gave him a fiver.
How cool, if i had have gone to yorkshire water it would have cost me £70, good old dad, will have to spend another fiver for some beers for him.
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If you do want to buy a water butt, I've found one that looks really good on the Allotment Shop (shameless plug!!) Water Butt (http://www.allotment-garden.org/greenhouse/Garden_Hosepipe_Water/product.php?pr=736)
250 litres and it's 31.99, which seems reasonable as the shop prices go. They do a stand as well and an offer of 44.99 if you buy both.
I also see they've got a water butt pump so you can have mains pressure from your rainwater. I'm putting these up on the site tomorrow but they're on the two wests site.
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councils should offer free water butts to allotmenteers or like me gardeners lol as it is encouraging us to save on there water.... mayb we should write a letter to our councils?? just ignore me 2day in 1 of them moods lol
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We've got mains water on-site and there isn't a shortage in the North West. I think the big problem in the South East is leaky pipes - they lose a third of all water to leaks.
Butts are great if you have something to fill them from like a shed or greenhouse (on the site)
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IIRC they're around £20 with stand from our council (Milton Keynes) for a 220 litre butt. Much cheaper than from the garden or DIY outlets. But MK council has been fairly "green" for most of its existance.
SnowDog
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We've got mains water on-site and there isn't a shortage in the North West. I think the big problem in the South East is leaky pipes - they lose a third of all water to leaks.
Butts are great if you have something to fill them from like a shed or greenhouse (on the site)
i think the biggest problem down here is leaky pipes and TOO MANY PEOPLE
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The reason the water companies aren't good at subsidising water butts is, that they want the water!! On that nursery we were going to buy, the owner had installed his own reservoir holding 200,000 litres of the water that was collected from his glasshouses roofs, but he said he could have got into trouble, as the water companies say the water is their's not his and he's not paying for it!!
Work that one out. Surely the water coming out of the sky doesn't belong to anyone, but if it falls on your garden or allotment, then surely its yours???
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i seem to remember a case where a water company took an elderly lady to court for just this situation about 10 years ago. the water company case hinged on the fact that if the lady didnt collect the rainwater for her own use, it would eventualy end up in a river or underground waterway where they would collect it, refine it, and then sell it to their consumers. i think the old ladys case was that they would not use all the water that fell as rainfall, some of it found its way into the sea "unmolested by a capitalistic concern", also the fact that in ages past, people collected rainwater for their own use, without incurring charges from any authority whatsoever. she won her case i think on the grounds that she was not even using the water company for the dispoal of her waste water because she had a cesspit that she paid a private contractor to empty. in effect she was a self contained unit. i think the judge stated that the water company was being in this case greedy.
i`m pretty sure that ive got the details correct, others may remember more about it. :wink:
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That's right qwiz, their argument is that the rain that falls does indeed end up in our case, soaking into the land drains and dykes around the fens, then eventually in their reservoirs etc etc etc.
But I maintain that the water that falls from the sky belongs to no one, but once its on my little bit of England, Its mine! Ok, at the moment, like all of you, its only to water my plants, so I still have to pay them for our household water and we are on a meter, so..... tough on them, and if I could go self sufficient with water, I would. We already have a septic tank, so don't pay those horrendous sewerage charges!!!!!
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I believe water collection, including rainwater was banned in Bolivia quite recently but there was such social unrest that the law didn't last any effective amount of time.
The reasons for the ban were very complex but it shows that it really can't be stopped,and nor should it. It has effectively zero consequence to any water company
I've got 2 water butts at home and there's 2 on our plot so far.
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councils should offer free water butts
councils will argue that you pay rent for your plot and the law states that allotment income should be spent on allotments. So far so good. BUT how much rent do you pay? Would the rent cover the cost of butts? (and all the other things that allotmenteers 'would like'? Rotavating, strimming, fencing, etc etc.
We got our Council to install cattle dringking troughs with ballcocks. The trough fills with water, we scoop it out with our watering cans, buckets, or whatever, and it fills up again while we go and water the plot. We still have taps so we can use hopepipes (when the ban is not in force) to fill our water butts. We are not allowed to use hoses on our plots. Several buckets fill a butt so its pretty stuipd that we can't use a hose to fill the butt, but the bucket is actually quicker!
The troughs work a treat.
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When the IMF instructed the Bolivian Government to privatise the water system in the city of Cochabamba, the British company that won the contract not only increased charges until they were the equivalent of a third of the average wage, but they forced people to buy licences to collect rainwater. After a campaign, in which about 8 protesters were shot by the Bolivian army, the Government backed down and re-nationalised it. Shape of things to come?
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When the IMF instructed the Bolivian Government to privatise the water system in the city of Cochabamba, the British company that won the contract not only increased charges until they were the equivalent of a third of the average wage, but they forced people to buy licences to collect rainwater. After a campaign, in which about 8 protesters were shot by the Bolivian army, the Government backed down and re-nationalised it. Shape of things to come?
Careful mellowmick, you don't want to criticise the "free" market now do you? :wink:
It was an effort to industrialise the country as quickly as possible. They've got lots of resources you know. Do they still have a navy?
Anyway, the people wouldn't have it.
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Just thought I would let you all know that I bought a large water container (800 litres or 176 gallons) from www.smithsofdean.co.uk. It is an IBC (whatever that means) which was used to transport peanut butter.
I had the choice between a clean one £65.00 or one with peanut butter residue in it. Being a cheapskate I took the dirty one for £25.00.
It took two hours to remove the peanut butter which amounted to nearly 5 gallons and now I don't know what to do with it. Any suggestions???
I'm going to paint the container to keep out the light and stop algae growth but I also hope to hide it behind a wooden panel. It comes enclosed in an aluminium cage on top of a plastic pallett and looks as if it should last forever. All we need now is some rain to fill it.
I also bought a bore hole pump to extract water from a well which I have in the garden. It is 75 feet deep and when I started to pump it had 11 feet of water.
After two days of watering the veg the blooming things dried up. I can't understand how it kept the water and now won't fill up again. I suppose I'll have to wait and see what happens when it rains.