News / plastic water butt
Hosepipe ban - Yorkshire
Today a hosepipe ban was announced for the Yorkshire region, and it is expected to last until winter. In previous years when hosepipe bans have been announced there has been a surge of water butt orders, with some sizes going out of stock, and longer delivery times. If you want to catch any falling rain and store it for watering your garden, a water butt kit that fits onto your drainpipe works great. Various sizes are for sale in the water butts category.
https://www.gardenis.co.uk/collections/water-butts
Will there be a drought where I live?
BBC article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk661074ejo
Extremely dry weather.
It has been very dry for weeks. The photo below shows gauges in the river. Typically the water is at the 2nd post. In flood it can be well past where the photo was taken. It's dry all over Britain. Just today the news said Scotland has had the driest start to the year since 1964. Who knows, the weather might change to constant downpours, but if it remains drier than average there could be summer hosepipe bans. If this happens, there is usually a surge of orders for water butts. To avoid the queues for delivery you could order now, to get your water butt kit ready and collect any rain that falls. Various sizes and types are available in the water butt section.
Dry start to 2025 = water butts
July 2023 was hot, the grass turned yellow. This followed on from the super hot day in August 2022, that broke records. People thought it was going to be a good summer, then July began...
An introduction to water butts
Large green 350 litre water butts now available again
What are the benefits of having a water butt in autumn and winter?
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
Hosepipe Ban - Kent & Sussex
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!
