Rain water harvesting

[Phil Pascoe]

At the moment our house is not metered, it's band C for rating purposes and our water rate is £1158 p.a. We've worked out it would be more if it were metered - we have friends and relatives who are on meters.
By the bye , the time has come to move house, and I'm seriously looking at installing rainwater harvesting. Has anyone any tales of woe, general advice, good news stories or recommended suppliers??
Thanks, Phil.

 

[Richard S]

Suppliers of rain water? I think you will find there's a monopoly on that one

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Suppliers of rain water? I think you will find there's a monopoly on that one

Yes, it's South West Water in my case. Not for long, hopefully.

 

[Richard S]

Interestingly, I had a conversation very recently with a customer of mine who is over from Australia and he was telling me about the house they had built. It is in one of the driest areas of the country and they manage to harvest a years worth of water from their roof. Apparently there is only about one month of rain during the whole year so they need pretty big storage tanks. If it is viable over there it must be here too.

 

[Andrewf]

The village I live in didn't have mains water until after 1918. So a lot of the older houses had brick lined cisterns dug in the garden to collect rain water and a manual hand pump in the kitchen. In fact a lot of the houses still have them and are mainly used for watering the garden now. Infact when the mains water was installed some family's still used their cisterns for years afterwards and it worked well. Though I imagine that ones built for the higher water consumption now adays would need to quite a bit bigger.

 

[devonwoody]

Phillip, you could have a river at the bottom of your garden and pinch a bit somehow, its rainwater after all.

anyway your water will be cheaper in the future, I think SW water were the highest on price, but you will I assume not be eligable for the £50 yearly refund being given over the ten years. You could try and point out to the government that it should still be made available if you move out of the area, but dont hold your breath.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I said at first that it was £1258 - but it was £1158. And that's after the £50 refund - it's a joke.
I'll have to move a long way to get away from SW Water!

 

[cambournepete]

I'd look at grey water harvesting as well - using bath and shower water etc to flash the loo and water the garden...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Pete, how is the Land of the Long White Cloud? My sister's a jafa, I've been over twice, although not to the south. I digress.
I haven't researched carefully as yet but I doubt grey water systems are worthwhile, in that half the water bill is sewerage and the amount you're billed for it is relative to your mains water use, and using mains water for baths and showers would increase the bill substantially. If you don't water gardens (I don't) and you don't wash cars (I certainly don't) a grey water system only really leaves loo flushing.
It's a joke really - we live in one of the wettest parts of the wettest parts of the country, and we pay three times what some of the dry areas pay for water.

 

[pip1954]

hi i am at present trying to make a rain water harvesting system every one laughed then when isaid your sewage charge was half of the clean water used, they stopped laughing then,
what i have is put two vavles in our cistern so we can have both water saved and mains water ,the problem is the amount of water you use to flush the loo, work it out how many times you flush x size of cistern it is a lot of water ,i have been using two water butts (120lts each) mounted on the wall so you don't need any pump(cost money to run) but tanks are'nt big enough.
people think it rains all the time in uk but when you collect it you know it does not .
the next step is to get bigger tank or tanks.
pip

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Just so that all you people in other areas can think yourselves lucky, my last years charges were as followed -
water/ usage charge £292.28, standing charge £142.20
sewerage/ usage charge £571.56 standing charge £131.90 so

£434.48 for water and £703.46 for sewerage.
I wish my sewerage WAS half the price of the water!
This is a rate, not a metered charge - it would be more if metered. This has been carefully checked.

 

[devonwoody]

A dunny at the bottom of your garden is what you need. Phillip

 

[Roughcut]

Blimey Phil.p your sewerage charge is very high.
Where I live sewerage is charged at 90% of the water rates.
Rain water harvesting can be as simple as connecting a run off pipe into your gutter downpipe and then using one or more water butts to store water.
Or more complex would be an underground storage tank with a submersible pump.
ps. If using an outside tank to store water it's not a good idea to use the "natural" colour of mdpe water tank (white/clear), because when exposed to uv light for prolonged periods it will promote algae growth in the water.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'm thinking about professionally made, large underground systems.

 

[mind_the_goat]

Have a look at the Centre for Alternative Technology website, lots of info, fact sheets, and books available. I think they would also be happy to take your phone call to discuss any issues (don't quote me on that, but I know if you turn up in person they will talk to you).
I don;t consider this a commercial operation so hopefully I can post the link:
http://www.cat.org.uk/

 

[NikNak]

Am i really reading this right...?

A Band C property is being charged £1158 for water...?!?! :shock:

We're in a band F and before we swapped over to a meter we were being charged a tad under £560.. a year...!!

We decided THAT was ridiculous so moved to a meter, and now get 6 monthly bills (if i'm reading statements correctly) of around £150...

OK... there is only 2 of us... even so, i wouldn't say we're being stindgy when it comes to water usage (no.... we don't let it 'mellow'...) got all the normal kitchen appliances and we have a power shower with a mahoosive pump on it.

If nothing else, this has taught me that the grass isn't always greener etc.... :?



Nick

 

[Phil Pascoe]

£300 a year sounds good. Our standing charges are £274!
My cousin's house is metered, and they don't waste water. Her water bill is four times her gas and electricity put together.

 

[Naxie]

Hi Phil, we are in Devon so hence also customers of South West Water. We are on a meter, a family of four, two young children with associated washing machine use, all shower / bath twice a day dishwasher twice a day and a koi pond to maintain and our last yearly bill was £550.

I'm I not right in saying that you can "try" a meter with SWW and change back to normal billing within the first 12 months with no financial penalty? That was the case when we did it and I certainly would never go back.

Your sisters bill seems excessively high, is it worth her getting it checked? Might be worth making sure all taps etc are off and checking the meter over an hour or so to see if it moves?

Kind regards,
Ed

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My cousin's house is a very small, new two up two down, so not much to check. I know other families the same size and ages as ours, and in houses similar to ours that pay more on a meter than we pay on rate. Maybe Cornwall gets charged more than Devon? I think we should be told!

 

[devonwoody]

My cousin's house is a very small, new two up two down, so not much to check. I know other families the same size and ages as ours, and in houses similar to ours that pay more on a meter than we pay on rate. Maybe Cornwall gets charged more than Devon? I think we should be told!

Phillip I came off standard charge unmetered when they asked over £1000, my meter bill is just under £500 and we use a lot of water this time of the year on the garden, didnt tho last year on second thoughts.

Somethin is wrong about that Cornwall comparison with yours.