News / garden water butts

Although the main benefit of having a water kit is to save water in summer, to water the lawn, veg patch and flowers. They do have some benefits in the autumn and winter months when there is a lot more rain.

Firstly, if you have a water meter installed, you will want to use the mains taps as infrequently as possible, to save money. So, you can use the water in your water butts to fill buckets to hand-wash the car, or for mopping floors, cleaning greenhouse glass panels, patios etc.

Another more communal benefit, is how it can slow the flow of water going down drains during periods of heavy rain, which can increase flood risk, and also use of sewage outflow pipes into rivers. (During high rainfall periods, these pipes are used to prevent waste water backing up pipes.) 

An Olympic swimming pool holds 2.5 million litres of water. If 6,300 homes , of a small town, all installed a 200 litre water butt double kit, (400 litres total), it would save 2.52 million litres from going straight into the drain network, during a heavy downpour. With an Olympic swimming pool worth of water saved in the water butts, this could lower the risk of some local flooding, and reduce the use of a nearby sewage outflow pipe into the river.

200 litre water butt double kit, available to buy here;

https://www.gardenis.co.uk/products/200-litre-water-butt-kit-double-200-litre-water-butt-kit

Image - Wiki creative commons / Kallerna

WOW! A hosepipe ban has just been announced for Kent and Sussex. I can never recall a hosepipe ban so early in the summer, but then we have just had net migration of 1 million people in just the last 2 years. I worked it out that based on 150 litres average daily use per person (OFWAT) that is a yearly increase in demand equivalent to the UK's 9th largest reservoir. Do you think the water companies have built such a reservoir in the last 24 months? Of course not, so it just means the reservoirs we do have will be emptying faster. Strangely, no-one even considers this huge impact, people might mention traffic, GP waiting times, school class sizes etc, but not water.

So, if you want to water your garden order a water butt here!

https://www.gardenis.co.uk/collections/grow-your-own

After a very busy late summer due to the drought conditions, the water butts are available again. The 200 litre double kit (400 litres in total) is the bestseller, and had to be put off sale for a while, to clear a backlog of outstanding orders. Everything is almost back to normal, so it is back on sale now, along with the 227 litre size, which had been out of stock.

If you are thinking of getting a water butt sometime in the coming year, please, if you can afford to, buy it over the autumn and winter. This is a quieter period, so deliveries are generally faster, and you can get it all set up for spring. Every year, everyone waits until it is summer, then orders, and this creates longer delivery times, as too many people order all at once. As you can imagine, a drought being declared in August, with hosepipe bans, made this a much bigger problem than normal.

Water butts can be ordered here;

https://www.gardenis.co.uk/collections/grow-your-own