On water meters: Worth it for gardeners, or not?

[Scarlet]

I don't pay mains sewerage. I'm very careful with the water, there's 4 of us though the kids aren't in a lot. Space savers in the toilet etc OH often spends a penny on my compost heaps I pay approx £600 a year. I don't water any of the garden at all except a dozen or so pots around my front door when the two water butts there dry out. The GH's get watered most days with a hose during summer as often the water butts are dried up then. I have two/3 water butts on each of my GH's and my shed.

[Scarlet]

Growing in containers mulching as little or no effect as the sun can act on the sides of the containers, drying things out very quickly therefore you have to water much more than when using traditional methods. As a for instance a dustbin of spuds will need a two gallon bucket every day in the height of summer and I have 12 of those.

I used to grow much more in pots around my kitchen door..watering these seemed to be a full time job. My hanging baskets need watering twice a day so I'm not surprised. My mum wouldn't change to a metre for the same reason.

[Kristen]

when the two water butts there dry out ... often the water butts are dried up then

Dunno if any help to anyone else, and it may only suit me 'coz it is flat here

I have the water butts on the house downpipes linked to those on the greenhouse, and also to a couple of IBCs hidden under some trees nearby. The water butts on the house are raised up on blocks, so they are actually the highest - which means that if we get a downpour they have a bit of spare "headroom" for the linking pipe to drain them to the other tanks at a slower rate than a thunder storm!

I just connect an old piece of hose to the tap on the bottom of the butt and drape it up-and-over into the next tank / butt (which is slightly lower). When the first one fills up high enough the water flows up-and-over into the next one and then primes it as a syphon so the water levels then keep their level. An alternative is to link the hose using Y-connectors and attach to the taps, but the IBCs don't come with hose connectors, and they seem to cost-a-plenty hence my syphon approach.

I use the water butts on the greenhouse 100x more than the ones on the house, so having them linked means that I have water where I need it. Beyond that we pump from the larger rainwater harvesting tank, but unless all the butts & IBCs run dry I run on Gravity, which cost me nought

[Scarlet]

Hmm, I'm cr@p at DIY and my OH interests lies elsewhere (he's a cycling fan - and managed to cycle 7536 miles this year not inc today's ride!)
How far away from the house butts is the GH?

[Kristen]

How far away from the house butts is the GH?

50M I would guess - its certainly "quite a long way", but provided that the height difference is minimal the distance shouldn't matter. The hose that connects them only flows at a dribble, but over it sorts itself out over several hours. When I water the greenhouse the butt drops by a foot or so (i.e. several watering cans used), and then an hour or two later has filled back up from the connected butts so that, overall, perhaps only an inch is lost (i.e. an inch from every water butt - total storage being, say, 12x that of the single butt by the greenhouse)

[Kristen]

As a for instance a dustbin of spuds will need a two gallon bucket every day in the height of summer and I have 12 of those.

2 x gallons x 12 pots x 5 months x 30.5 days = 16 cu.m. Dunno what sort of average price per Cu.M. (1000 Litres) metered water is? I pay a bit over £1, perhaps £3 is more normal including sewerage? so say £16 - £48 p.a. (just for that crop of course).

I agree that containers need more water, and may not be cost effective for Water Meter, but it might be worth doing the sums?

[mothhawk]

I've had a water meter ever since they were brought out. Makes sense to me to reduce my domestic water rates.
The garden is watered with rain water, caught from GH roofs etc. Tap water is used only for seedlings, not for anything else. I never use a hosepipe in the garden, plants have to adjust to available rainfall. No pampered plants here.

Yes, but you're in soggy South Wales, VC with an average annual rainfall of 38". In Leics we get only 28" and West Yorks where H&V is only average 25", so all your plants are pampered with 10" more rainfall than us Midlanders and Yorkists

[rary]

Here in the west of Scotland the water has not been privatized plus we do have a high rain fall but I still use water butts to catch the rain, I also use plastic bottles sunk into the ground, pots or baskets to water my plants, as this encourages the plants to push their roots down and when added to my baskets I use less water this way, so you could try that along with mulching to see how it goes

[veggiechicken]

Yes, but you're in soggy South Wales, VC with an average annual rainfall of 38". In Leics we get only 28" and West Yorks where H&V is only average 25", so all your plants are pampered with 10" more rainfall than us Midlanders and Yorkists

Pampered It hasn't helped me to grow, MH, in fact I think I've shrunk in the rain
I'd have a water meter anyway. On the basis that, if there are less occupants than there are bedrooms, you're likely to save on your water rates with a meter.
My annual combined water/sewerage bills for 2 houses is £390. Much of that is standing charge. I'd be paying a lot more with standard water rates.
No brainer for me

[Potstubsdustbins]

Kristen, yes I did sums and with all my containers it would cost considerably more on a meter, but thanks for asking and doing the sums.

[Penellype]

I got a water meter 9 years ago having read the information on this site: Water bills: water meters & other ways to save - MSE

I paid about £225 for water and sewage on the old system in 2005, and this dropped to about £50 for 2006 with the water meter. Prices have gone up of course, and the bills for 2014 added up to £135, but this is still a lot less than I was paying in 2005!

York is cheap for water and I am careful how much I use, but I have no room for a water butt so I just collect what I can in buckets and store it in a 70l dustbin for my blueberries, everything else comes out of the tap. I grow a lot of my veg in pots, so I am watering them every day in the summer.

[Kristen]

I have no room for a water butt

It infuriates me that building regs don't require the installation of an underground tank on new builds (with gardens), that would enable such houses to irrigate the garden without using mains water at all, or having to have water butts on downpipes or laboriously saving bath water and the like.

Instead we carry on building houses that, for the lifetime of the building - probably hundreds of years, won't have that facility.

Sorry ... Rant Over!

[Penellype]

It infuriates me that building regs don't require the installation of an underground tank on new builds (with gardens), that would enable such houses to irrigate the garden without using mains water at all, or having to have water butts on downpipes or laboriously saving bath water and the like.

Instead we carry on building houses that, for the lifetime of the building - probably hundreds of years, won't have that facility.

Sorry ... Rant Over!

Totally agree. Don't get me started on building houses on flood plains either...

My house was built in 1972 and has a shared drive, which is therefore narrow. The fall pipes from the roof are both alongside the drive and any sort of water butt would be seriously in the way. I think the builder was a bit stupid, because the garage is built in a position where it would be possible to get a small car in, but only if you were extremely careful not to hit the house wall on the way out. And yet there is a gap wide enough to walk through between my garage and the neighbour's one. The people in the other half of my semi told me they had demolished their garage years ago because it was in a position in the back garden where it was physically impossible to get a car in at all! My conclusion is that builders cram as many houses as possible into the avaialble space without any thought for practicality, and precious little for sensible environmental considerations. Why, for example, are new houses not fitted with solar panels as standard?

[Bill HH]

I think much will depend on what you pay for your water. We are not on mains sewerage, so we are not charged sewage rates based on metered mains water used, which is an added cost for irrigation water for anyone on a meter + mains sewage. In the SE of England the rates are very high, here they don't seem to be too bad.

If you have a large garden such as yours Kristen, you can get an exemption from the sewerage charge for that part of your bill that is non domestic. Takes a bit of negotiation with the water board.

As you are not on a meter this information is comletely pointless but it might help others..

[Bill HH]

Hmm, I'm cr@p at DIY and my OH interests lies elsewhere (he's a cycling fan - and managed to cycle 7536 miles this year not inc today's ride!)
How far away from the house butts is the GH?

If he could harvest his perspiration you could water all your plants for nothing.