Hosepipe ban

New Home

Lucky you. Yellow grass central here.

beggars_bush

Few things on this

Almost every house now has a power washer
Thanks to Aldi, lidl and internet shopping almost any house with kids has a paddling pool, and many of them are quite big.
A lot more people gardening this spring

magicbastarder

power washers don't actually use more water than a normal hose (per unit time, obviously).
many of them can connect to a water butt, too, i've an entry level karcher which does, but it splutters a bit if the butt is not at least half full.

looksee

I have some power washing to do (paving) but its on hold for the moment, even though we have a private well. Its raining enough here (N. Waterford) to be damp and a bit gloomy, but not enough to be useful.

magicbastarder

i ended up watching this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMwlOYjCF6k

and did a bit of googling on the legalities of it.

You don't have to get planning permission for a private well provided the quantity to be pumped is less than five million litres per day.

emphasis mine.

FlipperThePriest

magicbastarder wrote: »

i ended up watching this:

Cool... The meme 'expectation vs reality' springs to mind here.

obi604

From what I read the hose pipe ban stops a lot of things. But it does not specifically say cleaning a patio or wall with a a pressure washer is prohibited. (Mentions washing a car) Not that I will be doing it, but just an observation.

albernazj93

Thank God it's raining for real!

zippy84 wrote: »

Cool... The meme 'expectation vs reality' springs to mind here.

Hahahahahaha

cheif kaiser

What if I attach a hose pipe to my water butt!??!?!

magicbastarder

obi604 wrote: »

From what I read the hose pipe ban stops a lot of things. But it does not specifically say cleaning a patio or wall with a a pressure washer is prohibited. (Mentions washing a car) Not that I will be doing it, but just an observation.

of course it doesn't. it bans the use of a hose, they do not need to list all uses of said hose.
'your honour, i was using it to water my elephant and elephants aren't mentioned in the law'.

albernazj93

magicbastarder wrote: »

of course it doesn't. it bans the use of a hose, they do not need to list all uses of said hose.
'your honour, i was using it to water my elephant and elephants aren't mentioned in the law'.

Gaps in the law lead to corruption, abuse, etc. As the law has been created to control something, and it applies to every citizen, it should cover every single situation.
Each person will read and understand it differently.

It might go both ways: People might not use the water at all or people might find a workaround to keep their daily tasks. Which one is wrong?







But I don't care, as long as it's raining and my new grass is growing I'm happy enough

magicbastarder

albernazj93 wrote: »

Gaps in the law lead to corruption, abuse, etc. As the law has been created to control something, and it applies to every citizen, it should cover every single situation.
Each person will read and understand it differently.

every single situation? no, the law does not have to explicitly list every single situation. contrary to what you say, it would make the law *easier* to subvert.
'you are not allowed use a hose connected to a municipal supply' is plenty. because it covers every single use of a hose connected to a municipal supply without having to specify that you are not allowed use a hose connected to a municipal supply to hose pigeons off the roof.

albernazj93

magicbastarder wrote: »

every single situation? no, the law does not have to explicitly list every single situation. contrary to what you say, it would make the law *easier* to subvert.
'you are not allowed use a hose connected to a municipal supply' is plenty. because it covers every single use of a hose connected to a municipal supply without having to specify that you are not allowed use a hose connected to a municipal supply to hose pigeons off the roof.

Following your thoughts, it should be better to say "Don't waste water".

The pipe thing makes no sense to me. If I'm a person that takes four baths a day, I would be wasting more water than someone that runs the sprinkler for 10 minutes a day.

looksee

But then you might argue that you need four baths a day and therefore are not wasting water. Banning hosepipes is a broad brush way of making it clear that water should not be wasted, with the opportunity to impose sanctions on those who ignore suggestions.

magicbastarder

yeah, they're not going to limit use for personal hygiene; there are very few uses of a hose which can be argued are actually a necessity.

New Home

But... what about firemen? :pac:

GreeBo

looksee wrote: »

But then you might argue that you need four baths a day and therefore are not wasting water. Banning hosepipes is a broad brush way of making it clear that water should not be wasted, with the opportunity to impose sanctions on those who ignore suggestions.

I dont think there has been a single sanction brought since pre 2018...

CelticRambler

Ye should all consider yourselves very fortunate. Here in France, our "hosepipe ban" last year prohibited the watering of anything other than dirty children and smelly Frenchmen. :eek: And that's in a country where water is metered; believe me, the water companies are not happy when the government tells the general public to turn off their taps and not use them for three months.

The irrigation of commercial/agricultural crops was also completely banned over the whole summer ... and it looks like we're heading for the same again. There's one département already in "red" with a complete ban on the non-essential use of water.

dom40

Darc19 wrote: »

And how much do you pay each year?

Here people want it for nothing, therefore no infrastructure investment, and water shortages.

Iknow when i paid my car tax in Ireland that some of the payment went towards water treatment,Does this still happen?

dom40

no.8 wrote: »

I think you'll find that you're well off the mark there Dom. Compare the Dublin region for avg. Annual rainfall vs. numerous large European cities.

mabye i am,but every time i go back to Ireland it just never stops with the rain.

magicbastarder

dom40 wrote: »

Iknow when i paid my car tax in Ireland that some of the payment went towards water treatment,Does this still happen?

it all just goes into one big pool i think. like pouring a glass of water into a bath, and an hour later taking the same volume back out, claiming the water you're taking out is the same water you poured in earlier.

New Home

Funny 'cause that's exactly what happens with water.

mcgragger

Literally rained everyday since the ban came in.

New Home

Literally not everywhere (although the last three days have been a wash out, here at least).

GreeBo

We've had a significant increase in rain, but still not enough to make up for months of drought.
However the temps are also down significantly, so evaporation should also be down.

NIMAN

No shortage of water this last 48hrs, been miserable!

CJhaughey

NIMAN wrote: »

No shortage of water this last 48hrs, been miserable!

But the soil has a deficit of water so very little of the water falling will actually make it to the reservoirs. Its just soaked up like a sponge.

NIMAN

CJhaughey wrote: »

But the soil has a deficit of water so very little of the water falling will actually make it to the reservoirs. Its just soaked up like a sponge.

It was my soil I was worried about;)

As for the reservoirs, I always assumed it was simply the rain falling that helped restock them, but obviously not. I take it there is run off that ends up there too? Care to explain for the likes of me?

johnb25

mcgragger wrote: »

Literally rained everyday since the ban came in.

Land was very dry, and soaked up much of it. River levels still very low, so reservoirs will be low.

loyatemu

NIMAN wrote: »

It was my soil I was worried about;)

As for the reservoirs, I always assumed it was simply the rain falling that helped restock them, but obviously not. I take it there is run off that ends up there too? Care to explain for the likes of me?

they're fed by rivers - the one at Blessington is fed by the Liffey and the one at Roundwood by the Vartry, so large parts of the Wicklow mountains ultimately drain into those reservoirs. The water is then pumped to smaller reservoirs like the one at Stillorgan.