Earlswood Garden & Landscape Centre News

All this water and nothing to drink

We know that as soon as we get the first sunny day of the year there will be a hosepipe ban, but what exactly does that mean? Can avid gardeners still water their lush green lawn and their beautifully blossomed plants? Can allotment owners continue to water their crops?

We know why hosepipe bans are issued, because there’s an insufficient amount of water in reservoirs to cater for the general public should water treatment plants start to run low. That’s the cause but what’s the solution? I’ve always felt it a little ironic that a planet covered in 75% water has drought problems.

There’s a growing concern to the melting ice caps which in turn causes sea levels to rise and the best way to stop rising water is to have somewhere for it to go and what consumes more water than anything? We do.

Desalination plants are the first things that come to mind; they are a large water treatment facility that turns seawater into drinkable water. So why don’t we build a load of these plants? Unfortunately the costs of running these types of facilities is very expensive and it ends up being cheaper to divert water from countries with surplus amounts to those with little water.

That’s all well and good for providing enough water to a large population but what can we do? Water butts are a great solution for the average household, almost 100,000 litres of rainwater falls on our roofs each year and we can use them to capture the rainwater, which in turn we can use to water crops, plants and grass.

How a water butt works
A water butt can be connected to a downpipe so that it collects rainwater from your gutters. If you are using a downpipe, you will also need an overflow pipe or a rain diverter to redirect water into the butt. Once it’s full, water flows down the drainpipe. A gutter filter will also keep out unwanted debris.

To fit a diverter or an overflow pipe, your butt will need a hole in the side, and to fit it directly to a downpipe it will need a hole in the lid. Butts either already have these holes provided or have a guide as to where to cut a hole.

How much do they cost?
Not as much as you may think, we have water butts from as little as £24.99, which holds up to 100 Litres of water, that’s roughly fourteen full 7-litre watering cans. If you need something bigger we also have 136 and 210 Litre water butts at a cost of £29.99 and £35.99 respectively.

We also supply all the diverters, connectors and filters you’ll need and our expert staff will help you choose what you need and if needed advise you on setting everything up. A Connector Kit and a Diverter & Filtration Kit bought together cost £26.98, that means all the connectors and filters and a 100L water butt will only cost you 52p a litre for the first 100 litres.