Water storage

[slowworm]

You can only extract if it's there as well and to be honest, for 11 months of the year, I only want to extract a few hundred litres. But at times like this it makes you think of storing a bit more, not just for the house and garden but as there's no mains water for miles around also for the risk of fire.

I'd love a lorry load of cheap IBCs but we're too remote to get them cheaply. Currently mulling over a dog swimming pool sized storage tank.

 

[British Red]

It's certainly proved worthwhile here to have such things. Even here, IBCs are "get 'em when you see 'em" things. Many farmers use them as impromptu bowsers and increasingly for harvesting rainwater. Its also common here for people to build ponds and lagoons to store water (often rainwater from barns & glasshouses). Might that be an option?

 

[slowworm]

I could do with a dozen IBC cheap cages for seasoning logs, but the delivery makes them too expensive.

I'm looking at lagoons/ponds but I'm too easily distracted by wildlife so they'd just become wildlife ponds. Not a bad thing, and if the house is burning down I'd resort to using the water, but could do with something a bit more 'just for the garden'.

 

[knowledge=gain]

whereby the claim by the industry that they own the watercourses they forget that we have a natural right to water and it is not theirs to take away from us

and water was on this planet long before them

did you know that for those that do not or rather bona-fide and genuinely cannot pay the water fees, the waterboards cannot turn the water off by law

the only time waterboards are allowed by law to turn off water is to fix the pipework pumps and-such in as minimal time as is possible and get the water turned back on as quickly as possible

 

[slowworm]

I don't think there's much point moaning about abstraction restrictions (after all, they are likely to be beneficial to many) as most of us have the ability to collect large amounts of rainwater. Hence this thread is for practical ideas.

If I had the money I'd stick in a coup!e of 10,000 litre tanks and a full set of filters and pumps. At the moment I'll probably add to my water butts.

 

[Broch]

If it's for 'grey' water supply (is that the right term?) the recycled IBCs are available as low as £80 to £90 but with no guarantee of what they were used for before.

 

[TLM]

If it's for 'grey' water supply (is that the right term?)

Here that is used for non toilet but used household waste water. I guess it can be used as well for non drinking or washing collected or stored water too.

 

[British Red]

If it's for 'grey' water supply (is that the right term?) the recycled IBCs are available as low as £80 to £90 but with no guarantee of what they were used for before.

You can get them for less than that here, but you might need to clean them yourself

 

[TLM]

I have a former polyester resin container for rainwater. Kept it in the sun for a few weeks to get rid of the styrene, the remaining resin soon hardened and has not been a problem since. Had to change the tap as that was stuck. Paid eur 50 for it.

 

[slowworm]

If I'm going to use the water on the fruit and veg patch then I'd rather have something that has only had food safe stuff before. I have found some for about £80 but the same again for delivery.

I do have a newish heating oil tank that I've removed, I need to clean that out as it would be usable to store a decent amount t of water in case of fire.

 

[British Red]

If I'm going to use the water on the fruit and veg patch then I'd rather have something that has only had food safe stuff before. I have found some for about £80 but the same again for delivery.

I do have a newish heating oil tank that I've removed, I need to clean that out as it would be usable to store a decent amount t of water in case of fire.

It's the delivery that gets you. Ours mostly had cooking oil in - a pain to clean out (but they were cheap) but better than cleaning chemicals. So much of what we bought cheaply setting this place up is no longer cheap.

 

[slowworm]

So much of what we bought cheaply setting this place up is no longer cheap.

Same here and there are plenty of things I should have bought cheaply a few years ago that I didn't and they're now too expensive. At least I bought my holding before the covid rush to the country.

 

[British Red]

Same here and there are plenty of things I should have bought cheaply a few years ago that I didn't and they're now too expensive. At least I bought my holding before the covid rush to the country.

I suspect a lot of those will be back on the market after a hard Winter

 

[Broch]

I suspect a lot of those will be back on the market after a hard Winter

Or when they realize it's 25 miles to the nearest M&S and Dominoes don't deliver to the country.

 

[slowworm]

There's a few properties around here that have changed hands a few times after the owners realise what the area is really like (too remote for them, i.e. no takeaways, shops too far away etc).

 

[TeeDee]

There's a few properties around here that have changed hands a few times after the owners realise what the area is really like (too remote for them, i.e. no takeaways, shops too far away etc).

Pyrrhic victory in someways, they would have probably only have outbid others when purchasing ( pushing the price up ) and will be looking to get the same amount of capital exiting also.

 

[British Red]

There's a few properties around here that have changed hands a few times after the owners realise what the area is really like (too remote for them, i.e. no takeaways, shops too far away etc).

You can usually spot them the moment they move in - its tempting to hold a sweepstake

 

[British Red]

So we had a 5 or 6 hours of steady rain last night, followed by 2 or 3 hours of heavy rain today

Here is our newly cleaned & repainted IBC array which we have just reconnected



One tank is connected to the South facing roof of my workshop and another to the East facing roof of the tool store. As a rough estimate consider the roofs together as a normal house sized roof.

The other three tanks are filled by a bottom fill crossflow system that you can see in the picture.

Knowing this rain was coming, I closed the crossflow valves to monitor how much water we could harvest in 24 hours (this forms part of an upcoming video on off grid water)

So, how much water do you think we harvested in 24 hours? I think the answer might surprise people!

I'd like to use the answers to inform a discussion of water a water system to cope with drought should consider.

 

[Broch]

OK, I'll stick my neck out - assuming 50mm of rain, around 5,000L (so half filled one IBC).

Of course, that really depends on the roof area as well!

 

[British Red]

OK, I'll stick my neck out - assuming 50mm of rain, around 5,000L (so half filled one IBC).

Of course, that really depends on the roof area as well!

Half an IBC is 500L rather than 5,000L, so I assume that's the guess?