Water Storage & water butts

Minder

I recently bought and installed two 140 ltr rainwater butts. I have a single downpipe in the back garden and had been tussling with the problem of decent rainwater storage for a while. This is the solution I have come up with.

MAJD pointed me to this useful rainwater catchment calculator, enter the roof area rather than pick the number of bedrooms (the calculator assumes bungalow). Get the average rainfall from the met office and get a quick calculation of the amount of water per month that is available to collect.

I have approx 3700 litres per month (annualised average) coming down one pipe. That is a huge amount of water and way beyond the capacity of my two small tanks. So I thought about pumping the water to a secondary storage tank at the back of the garden.

First problem is the price of the tanks. I can pay anything up to £0.44 per litre for a large water butt. So rather than buy these, 700 litre or 1500 litre, I am considering buying IBC Pallets. Capacity is 1000 litres per tank. I have found these for as little as £75 per tank including delivery. Thats £150 for 2000 litre storage against £880 for the pretty green boxes. I'm sure that I can make a housing to screen these rather industrial looking boxes from the savings. A small 1" clean water pump (£25) and a length of contractors hose and we are set.

I see a variety of additives available at the garden centres to add to collected rainwater - are these really necessary? I am assured that the IBC Pallets are clean and were not used for the storage of chemicals. I need a suitable base for the tanks, 1 tonne each when full. Is there anything else I need to consider?

Thanks

drag0n79

Minder wrote: »

MAJD pointed me to this useful rainwater catchment calculator,

I have approx 3700 litres per month (annualised average) coming down one pipe. That is a huge amount of water and way beyond the capacity of my two small tanks.

That seems like a huge amount. The site you mention with the calculator is run by a company that sell water storage units, it is in their interest to say that you could be recovering huge amounts of water. What formula do they use - I'd make sure to double check the result.

I'm not knocking the idea - but it really seems excessive (I tried my own house in the calculator, not a huge house, but gives a similar figure). If it is true, brilliant. I'll be doing the same thing as you.

Let me know if you find anything. I found another formula which is Catchment_Area(sq feet) X Rainfall_in_inches X 0.6. Result in gallons. Gives a completely different figure to the other calculator.

10-10-20

IMHO, it's not the amount of water you can store which is the issue, but the amount you use. I got a 250l storage container in France for €65 and I would use approx 15l per week, meaning that I would need a drout of 15 weeks to empty it... But, we seem to get rain every 4 weeks here in Ireland, so 250l is more than sufficient for me...

Minder

drag0n79 wrote: »

That seems like a huge amount. The site you mention with the calculator is run by a company that sell water storage units, it is in their interest to say that you could be recovering huge amounts of water. What formula do they use - I'd make sure to double check the result.

I'm not knocking the idea - but it really seems excessive (I tried my own house in the calculator, not a huge house, but gives a similar figure). If it is true, brilliant. I'll be doing the same thing as you.

Let me know if you find anything. I found another formula which is Catchment_Area(sq feet) X Rainfall_in_inches X 0.6. Result in gallons. Gives a completely different figure to the other calculator.

The monthly rainfall I got from the calculator did seem very large to me, but I was amazed to find that my water butts @ 2 x 140 litres filled completely one night when we had some heavy rain for a couple of hours.

10-10-20 wrote: »

IMHO, it's not the amount of water you can store which is the issue, but the amount you use. I got a 250l storage container in France for €65 and I would use approx 15l per week, meaning that I would need a drout of 15 weeks to empty it... But, we seem to get rain every 4 weeks here in Ireland, so 250l is more than sufficient for me...

It hasn't rained where I am for about 4 weeks apart from the odd shower. What I don't have is a calculation as to the amount of water the garden will use in a summer month. But as I am on a water meter and also charged by another water company for disposal into the sewers at 92.5% of my usage, having too much water for the garden won't be a problem. I inherited a soaker hose arrangement from the previous owner that will be plumbed into the storage tanks.

Minder

Some information on average rainfall vs usage in the summer months...

Water storage
Rainwater can be collected, and stored in tubs and other containers, from the roof of dwellings, garages, greenhouses and other structures.

Water butts are designed to collect water from either open or closed down pipes. Closed drain pipes can be easily tapped into with a rain water diverter kit. Similar kits are also available to connect several butts together, ensuring no water is lost even when the first container is full.

Local councils and DIY stores are good places to try for conventional plastic water butts. It is easier to access the water if the butt sits on a stand, either ready made or from bricks, and is fitted with a tap at the base. Butts moulded to look like beehives or terracotta urns are a more attractive option, as are recycled wooden barrels (the wood of which may have shrunk when dry: fill the barrel with mains water initially to swell the wood and make it watertight).

Even in dry districts 24,000 litres (150 water butts) could be collected from the roof each year. However, most water falls in winter, and would have to be stored for use in summer. An average planted area of 200sq m (about the size of an average garden) evaporates about 4,820 litres (about 30 ordinary water butts) every 10 days.

There are about 18 weeks from May until September when plants' needs exceed rainfall. At first, the shortfall is met from soil reserves but these may peter out by July leading to about six weeks when watering is needed, equating to up to 180 water butts!.......

Domestic wastewater may also be used. Household soaps and detergents are harmless to plants but bleaches, disinfectants and stronger cleaning products must not be used on plants although they will be harmless on bare soil. In containers alternating wastewater and mains or rainwater is prudent. Domestic gardening is unlikely to lead to pollution of ground water or streams and ponds when using waste water. However, gardeners should be aware that careless discharge of contaminated water could cause serious damage.

The key to keeping gardens water needs met lie in plantings that need little water but still do the job of making an attractive garden, conserving water in the soil, storing as much water as possible in the soil and eking out the mains supply with stored and waste water where possible......

Most water needed by plants is used to replenish losses from leaves. Leaves have openings or stomata to allow carbon dioxide used in photosynthesis to enter from the atmosphere. However, water is lost from the leaves through the stomata. This is replaced by water from the roots. In effect, the evaporation from cells within leaves sets up a suction that pulls water from the soil via the roots and conducting tubes in the plant to the leaves. When water becomes short the stomata close and without carbon dioxide photosynthesis stops and plant growth ceases.

As the plants abstract water the soil moisture content declines. The difference between field capacity (see soil water below) and current soil water status is called the soil moisture deficit. For the best plant growth irrigation should aim at replenishing the soil moisture deficit, but no more or the excess will drain to waste.

Commercial methods of measuring soil moisture deficit from soil or meteorological data to detect when the soil water levels need replenishing are inapplicable to gardens.

However, gardeners can inspect the soil at a spade's depth. If the soil feels damp there is unlikely to be any need to water, but if it is dry, then watering is probably required for some plants. Leaving some vegetable plants unwatered can delay maturity and may actually usefully spread the harvest period or season of interest. Gardeners should be aware that clay soils feel damp even when all available water has been used and sand can feel dry even if some water is available. The only way round this is to develop experience in matching the observed state of an individual gardens soil to the growth rate of the plants. Wilting is usually preceded by changes in leaf position and darkening of colour.

Once lack of moisture has been identified, water may be applied to restore the soil to field capacity. A clay soil in which plants are wilting might need 81-litres per sq m and a sandy soil 60-litres per sq m (or nine or seven watering cans) respectively. In practice gardeners are unlikely to let soil get this dry and water will usually be applied at the base of the plant rather than over a wide area greatly reducing the amount needed.

As a general guide up to 24-litres per sq m every seven to 10 days will be sufficient to maintain plant growth.

In practical terms it is best to water some of the garden before drought really sets in to keep the soil moist and avoid soil moisture deficits building up, in case water restrictions are imposed later, and because most gardeners will not have the resources to water the whole garden in a severe drought.

When the garden is affected by drought it is futile to try and remedy this by light watering over a wide area. Light watering may encourage surface rooting leaving plants more susceptible to drought. The water and time should be used to make a single thorough watering.

Try to water in the cool of the evening or very early morning. That way less water will be lost immediately to evaporation.

When water falls on the soil it enters the space between the particles that make up the soil. Water does not move down into the soil until all the pores above the descending wetted area have been filled. Therefore light watering merely wets the surface layers. It is not worthwhile just making the soil damp; it has to be thoroughly wetted for the water to travel down to the roots.

After watering or rain stops the water travels by gravity downwards while air enters the partially emptied pores. Some water is retained around each soil particle by surface tension and eventually drainage ceases. The soil now holds the maximum amount of water that it can. In this state, called field capacity, the soil contains air, water and nutrients and is in the ideal condition for plant growth.

As roots remove water the layer around each particle becomes thinner and surface tension increases making it more difficult for the plant to extract the water, leading to wilting, called permanent wilting point, where plants are unable to abstract water for growth.

The texture of soils influences how much water they can hold. Coarse sand soil might hold the equivalent of 50mm of rainfall in the top 60cm of soil, while a clay soil might hold 105mm of rain. Hence soil that contains 50mm of rain has 81-litre per sq m of water available to plants.

Some soil water is so tightly held to soil particles that plants cannot extract it. Clay with many small particles retains most water explaining its cold, wet nature.

Watering should never be carried out where drainage is poor - adding water will do more harm than good, as roots are very susceptible to airless conditions when the soil is warm in summer.

Soil texture can be altered by adding coarse sand or fine gravel, but because much material is needed to permanently change the soil texture it is not usually as effective as adding organic matter. Organic matter, garden compost for example, increases the moisture-holding capacity of the soil by about 50mm of rain in the first year after application.

muggyog

Slightly off topic but related.

When I bought my house ( 200 year old ) it had a large cast iron tank on the main roof to collect water and a cement ( originally stone ) tank to collect off a large stone built shed. Lead pipes supplied the water to the house! Ahhh those were the days when you could get a proper cup of tea.

drag0n79

drag0n79 wrote: »

That seems like a huge amount. The site you mention with the calculator is run by a company that sell water storage units, it is in their interest to say that you could be recovering huge amounts of water. What formula do they use - I'd make sure to double check the result.

I'm not knocking the idea - but it really seems excessive (I tried my own house in the calculator, not a huge house, but gives a similar figure). If it is true, brilliant. I'll be doing the same thing as you.

Replying to/correcting myself here: I have found on a 10ftX20ft shed, the rain can fill a 100 litre water butt in less than an hour (actually, in some of the heavy rain last year, I timed it filling in less than 7 minutes).
So you really can get a huge amount of water this way. The point about 'how much water you can store' vs 'how much water you can use' stands though, I've had to empty the tank into the drains many times.

Cabaal

Off-topic abit but can I ask what are the huge benefits of using water butts, ok I understand you could use the water for yoru garden but how could you use it for your house?

Sonnenblumen

Cabaal wrote: »

Off-topic abit but can I ask what are the huge benefits of using water butts, ok I understand you could use the water for yoru garden but how could you use it for your house?

Flushing Toilets, secondary washing, probably making home brew guinness (with a Liffey recipe!!), showering etc. Why the list is almost endless.

The Sweeper

Flushing toilets is definitely a big one. The water goes straight into your sewage lines and it's not as if you need to worry about whether or not it's going to contaminate what you're using it on after all!

We have heavy water restrictions here in Oz, and most toilets are dual flush - I think it's around 3-4 litres are used on a half flush, and around 6 litres on a full flush depending on the model of loo, with old-style loos using up to 13 litres of water for a flush.

Depending on the number of people in your household and the number of flushes per person, that's a lot of water. It's getting more and more common here to build a new house with anything up to a 4,500 litre rain tank attached, and have that tank plumbed directly to the toilet cisterns, with a failover so that if there hasn't been any rain, the loos go back to flushing with mains water.

petewee101

Minder wrote: »

I recently bought and installed two 140 ltr rainwater butts. I have a single downpipe in the back garden and had been tussling with the problem of decent rainwater storage for a while. This is the solution I have come up with.



First problem is the price of the tanks. I can pay anything up to £0.44 per litre for a large water butt. So rather than buy these, 700 litre or 1500 litre, I am considering buying IBC Pallets. Capacity is 1000 litres per tank. I have found these for as little as £75 per tank including delivery. Thats £150 for 2000 litre storage against £880 for the pretty green boxes. I'm sure that I can make a housing to screen these rather industrial looking boxes from the savings. A small 1" clean water pump (£25) and a length of contractors hose and we are set.


Hi ,

I am looking to buy a 1,000 ltr IBC pallet. Where did you get yours one ?

Thanks

Discodog

Many French country houses have a Cistern. Dig a big hole, line it with plastic, put sleepers on top & a submersible pump inside. Put a tank in the loft with a float switch so that as it empties the pump refills it with rainwater.

Rainwater is brilliant for washing clothes & humans. It is also better for the plants - no chlorine. There will not be any real interest until metering & charges come in.

The Sweeper

I know Minder lives somewhere that there IS water metering, even though this is an old thread.

In terms of the water you can collect off a roof - I have 4,300 litres of rainwater storage that's fed off one quarter of the roof of my house. In a heavy downpour, I can get between 500 and 1000 litres off the roof in one go. It goes over the garden, I don't have it plumbed into the house.

JaneF

Minder wrote: »

I recently bought and installed two 140 ltr rainwater butts. I have a single downpipe in the back garden and had been tussling with the problem of decent rainwater storage for a while. This is the solution I have come up with.

MAJD pointed me to this useful rainwater catchment calculator, enter the roof area rather than pick the number of bedrooms (the calculator assumes bungalow). Get the average rainfall from the met office and get a quick calculation of the amount of water per month that is available to collect.

I have approx 3700 litres per month (annualised average) coming down one pipe. That is a huge amount of water and way beyond the capacity of my two small tanks. So I thought about pumping the water to a secondary storage tank at the back of the garden.

First problem is the price of the tanks. I can pay anything up to £0.44 per litre for a large water butt. So rather than buy these, 700 litre or 1500 litre, I am considering buying IBC Pallets. Capacity is 1000 litres per tank. I have found these for as little as £75 per tank including delivery. Thats £150 for 2000 litre storage against £880 for the pretty green boxes. I'm sure that I can make a housing to screen these rather industrial looking boxes from the savings. A small 1" clean water pump (£25) and a length of contractors hose and we are set.

I see a variety of additives available at the garden centres to add to collected rainwater - are these really necessary? I am assured that the IBC Pallets are clean and were not used for the storage of chemicals. I need a suitable base for the tanks, 1 tonne each when full. Is there anything else I need to consider?

Thanks

Please tell me where you got your IBC palette for your water! I have been quoted €157.61 plus €50 for delivery to Co. Cork.
I want additional storage for my rainwater for garden and polytunnel use.

Cabaal

Discodog wrote: »

There will not be any real interest until metering & charges come in.

Fully agree with this and this is why I wanted to start now, since I've moved into my house 18 months ago I've had varying projects both inside and outside the house.

My outside projects have included installing a green cone, it sadly took three attempts until I got this to work correctly. I've also started growing veg and will have ALOT more space to do that this year.

Anyway my next project is a water butt, I have a pretty small garden and I eventually plan and getting a shed/glasshouse type setup for growing plants.

My plan for the water butt would be watering plants and "if" it can stretch to it to wash the car now and then.

Total capacity for what I want will be 380L, I could be way off so please people feel free to correct me if this is not nearly enough.

So the water butt will be placed at the side of the house between a fence and wall (there's a walk way) so they can't be massive either.

I plan on two 190L units and a pump installed in one to operate the hose.

So these

http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Household_Water_Saver_Kit.html

and this


http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Water_Butt_Accessories.html

The Sweeper

Cabaal, whether the capacity you're talking about is enough is a very broad question - it depends how much rain you get, how often you'll have to use the water on the garden because there's no rain, and how often you intend to wash your car.

Let's put it this way - here in Oz, I have a front garden that's almost finished. It's 23.5 metres wide and 10 metres deep, and of that 235m2, about 160m2 is laid to garden bed.

I have that 160m2 quite heavily mulched with straw because of the hot climate. We've had a very good year this year - as opposed to last year's drought conditions where we had literally 11 weeks with hardly 10mls of rain, a stretch that culminated in the Feb 7 bushfires, this year we're getting about 10mls of rain every week to 10 days. We keep getting hot spells lasting a week or so, then a cool change rumbles through with a thunderstorm and we get a soaking. (It was 35 degrees and sunny yesterday. Today it's 26 degrees and overcast and it's been raining all night.)

In the last two months, because of this rainfall, I've had to use only 300 litres of water on my 160m2 flowerbeds.

In a hot summer I'd use 800 litres a week, hence I have 4300 litres of storage, enough to last me five weeks - and remember it should rain at some point in those five weeks, topping up my tanks again, and all I use them for is the garden.

In a non-mulched garden, with climate-specific plants that are used to getting water, you may have to water every third day if there's been no rain, especially if it's been particularly sunny. Vegetable beds, you may need to water every day in a dry spell - and you should probably water pot plants whether or not there's been rain, because the area of the pot is very small to be capturing sufficient water, especially if it's overhung by the plant that lives in it!

Have you looked up your local bureau of meteor meterolo meteorolotgy weather website, to see how much rain is typical for your area?

Cabaal

Well I'm lucky in hat I'm in Ireland so I don't have the crazy warm temps that you have so the need to water as much as you and as often won't be an issue.

My project would be more about not wasting perfectly good drinking water to water house and gardens plants/veg in the summer (house plants in thw winter) and also to wash the car.

Thing is how do I work out how much water I need for a car to be washed?

section4

Cabaal wrote: »

Fully agree with this and this is why I wanted to start now, since I've moved into my house 18 months ago I've had varying projects both inside and outside the house.

My outside projects have included installing a green cone, it sadly took three attempts until I got this to work correctly. I've also started growing veg and will have ALOT more space to do that this year.

Anyway my next project is a water butt, I have a pretty small garden and I eventually plan and getting a shed/glasshouse type setup for growing plants.

My plan for the water butt would be watering plants and "if" it can stretch to it to wash the car now and then.

Total capacity for what I want will be 380L, I could be way off so please people feel free to correct me if this is not nearly enough.

So the water butt will be placed at the side of the house between a fence and wall (there's a walk way) so they can't be massive either.

I plan on two 190L units and a pump installed in one to operate the hose.

So these

http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Household_Water_Saver_Kit.html

and this


http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Water_Butt_Accessories.html

dublin city council are selling those same water butts for 40 euro each as far as i can see, i saw them in council window yesterday

goat2

i have square downpipes
all i see are fittings for round downshoots
any one advise on this
i am real interested in this

mountainy man

IBC tanks , got mine from local farmers co op for 75 euro seemed to orriginally have had engine oil in them but a good wash out and good as new . check your local co op, it is connaught gold up here in north west . they have a handy tap already on them, win win! on some of them the hole on the top isn't big enough for to get a water butt pump in so check, if thats what you want to do:)

mountainy man

got a diverter in homebase last year it is for both round and square pipes is pretty good and easy to fit:)

goat2

mountainy man wrote: »

got a diverter in homebase last year it is for both round and square pipes is pretty good and easy to fit:)

brilliant will have to rig it up
where is the best place to get the water holder
also it will be great to wash footpaths and driveways

doctor evil

What kind of work is needed to divert water from water butts into the piping to flush the loo etc

The Sweeper

Cabaal wrote: »

Thing is how do I work out how much water I need for a car to be washed?

Do it the hard way. Wash your car once with a trigger hose and a bucket, using the hose to fill the bucket and the bucket to soap and rinse the car. Count the buckets you use and get your litre usage that way.

Alternatively you can get switches you fit to your hose that 'counts' the number of litres of water you're using, or counts down the number of litres e.g. you can set it to 40 litres and once 40 litres has gone through, the valve will shut off. They're popular products here because of our water restrictions, but I'm sure you should be able to get them in a large hardware store in Ireland too.

kerosene

If you had a regular garden hose connected to a water butt would there be enough pressure to water plants in a polytunnel 6m long.

magicbastarder

depends on how much higher the level of the water in the butt is above the nozzle on the hose - should be enough pressure if you keep the hose a couple of feet below the level of the water.

dfbemt

kerosene wrote: »

If you had a regular garden hose connected to a water butt would there be enough pressure to water plants in a polytunnel 6m long.

Would one of those percolating hoses be better for this? Just leave it in situ, snaking around your plants, and let it percolate away.

this should ensure that your plants get just enough. It's what I do when we go away on hols at least.

GreyEagle

With the announcement today that we will all be paying for installation of water meters as well as for water used, I think maybe this topic of water butts is going to hot up again.
I recently got 3x200lt butts from Eddies Hardware in Drogheda for €165, that's 0.275c/lt:). I have one connected and filled and I'm waiting for a couple of spigots to complete the installation.
I choose to operate a positive pressure system, ie, instead of filling the tank and using the overflow in the diverter to restrict flow I set the diverter higher. Any time it rains the water flows into tank 1, then through a link to tanks 2&3. Tank 3 has an overflow pipe back to the drain so I have a constant recycling of fresh rainwater. This water is primarily for the garden.
My next stage is to plan a secondary water system for the house to feed the washing machine and the loos with rainwater.

paddy147

Does Enda really think that this "hair brained" plan of his is going to fly with the people of Ireland??

Not bleeding hope in hell of people being made to pay out for them.

More shyte talk from FG.

paddy147

Im very close to getting a 4000 litre underground system installed,this will feed/pump water to the house and to the attic and will be sterilised via UV sterilization system.

Enda Kenny,Eamon Gilmore,FG/Labour and the EU/IMF can all go and feck off with their water meters.


Fix the fcuked up leaking water mains,and we wont have any problems.




All this FG bullshyte talk of conserving water and being effiecent with it......Its not about conserving water and being effiecent,its all about another TAX.:mad:

GreyEagle

paddy147 wrote: »

Im very close to getting a 4000 litre underground system installed,this will feed/pump water to the house and to the attic and will be sterilised via UV sterilization system

That sounds like an excellent solution. Can't do anything like that myself as I would never get clearance from 'mission control' to dig up the garden. Also, I would like to limit expenditure until I see what the water bills are like. A big project may not be justified unless you have youth on your side.