What preps are you doing this week? Part 3.

[defender130]

I would guess rainwater so once it is in place and set up to collect then it will self fill in a prolonged water shortage situation every time it rains

Much easier than trying to set it up once the water shortage has happened and you need to get a 3/4 full ibc near the drainpipes to connect up


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[Catweazle]

I have IBCs too, for water storage, as a bonus I have found that keeping one in my polytunnel with my seed trays on top protects the seeds from frost - a thermal store for my seeds.

[Briggs 2.0]

I would guess rainwater so once it is in place and set up to collect then it will self fill in a prolonged water shortage situation every time it rains

Much easier than trying to set it up once the water shortage has happened and you need to get a 3/4 full ibc near the drainpipes to connect up


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@Deeps. You should know me by now and how tight I am on utilities - fill the IBC up from the tap? I seem to remember from my bill that it cost 23p per 1000 litres out of the tap and then they charge me three times that as a sewerage charge on top of 23p because they assume I've flushed it away. Rainwater is free, man, it's free.

I'm set up with a first flush on one of the gutter downpipes and that works well to get most of the roof muck out of the water. (The flush design is somewhere on the forum) I can then filter it if need be for drinking, but it's primary use will be for topping up the fish IBC and secondary as a back up drinking water supply. I have thought about double-stacking but my plan is to keep all five IBC's at the same level which will give me 5 square metres of growing room at waist height.

Thanks for the ideas and thoughts, if/when I get the aquaponics working correctly, I'll post an update. My ultimate goal is to be growing potatoes and carrots in the traditional way, and other veg, such as lettuce, cucumber and peas via the aquaponics plus get the odd trout dinner out of it.

[Deeps]

I would guess rainwater so once it is in place and set up to collect then it will self fill in a prolonged water shortage situation every time it rains

Much easier than trying to set it up once the water shortage has happened and you need to get a 3/4 full ibc near the drainpipes to connect up


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Deeps. You should know me by now and how tight I am on utilities - fill the IBC up from the tap? I seem to remember from my bill that it cost 23p per 1000 litres out of the tap and then they charge me three times that as a sewerage charge on top of 23p because they assume I've flushed it away. Rainwater is free, man, it's free.

I'm set up with a first flush on one of the gutter downpipes and that works well to get most of the roof muck out of the water. (The flush design is somewhere on the forum) I can then filter it if need be for drinking, but it's primary use will be for topping up the fish IBC and secondary as a back up drinking water supply. I have thought about double-stacking but my plan is to keep all five IBC's at the same level which will give me 5 square metres of growing room at waist height.

Thanks for the ideas and thoughts, if/when I get the aquaponics working correctly, I'll post an update. My ultimate goal is to be growing potatoes and carrots in the traditional way, and other veg, such as lettuce, cucumber and peas via the aquaponics plus get the odd trout dinner out of it.

My bad, I was forgetting that south of the border you guys have water meters, bloody savages.

[Decaff]

I don't have a water meter flat downstairs has one and her bills are huge!

[Briggs 2.0]

I don't have a water meter flat downstairs has one and her bills are huge!

I don't have a recent bill to hand but to the best of my recollection, there's a standing charge, then there's a charge for incoming water per litre and a charge for taking it away as waste/sewage per litre, which is about three times, yes, 3 times, the cost of incoming.

I regularly have a pee outside while the dog is doing the same and I figure I'm saving on the cost of the five litres it takes to flush. I'm not tight, I just despise utility bills. If I was tight, I'd be taking a dump outside as well and as we all know, that can often be a double flush.

[Arzosah]

Loving the seed trays using the IBCs as a thermal store, thats great!

Erm, the water meter chat, though, I dunno - I've had one about ten years, my bill used to be £45 per month, after the water meter was installed it went down to £11 per month, and now with inflation its up to about £15 ... I certainly use the American rhyme:

"If its yellow let it mellow,
If its brown, flush it down"

[Decaff]

I don't have a water meter flat downstairs has one and her bills are huge!

I don't have a recent bill to hand but to the best of my recollection, there's a standing charge, then there's a charge for incoming water per litre and a charge for taking it away as waste/sewage per litre, which is about three times, yes, 3 times, the cost of incoming.

I regularly have a pee outside while the dog is doing the same and I figure I'm saving on the cost of the five litres it takes to flush. I'm not tight, I just despise utility bills. If I was tight, I'd be taking a dump outside as well and as we all know, that can often be a double flush.

So given the choice, would you not have a meter? Everyone I know with one regrets it unless they are living alone, less washing machine use, less for baths/showers etc.

[Decaff]

Loving the seed trays using the IBCs as a thermal store, thats great!

Erm, the water meter chat, though, I dunno - I've had one about ten years, my bill used to be £45 per month, after the water meter was installed it went down to £11 per month, and now with inflation its up to about £15 ... I certainly use the American rhyme:

"If its yellow let it mellow,
If its brown, flush it down"

With three of us letting it mellow would just not work for me!! I think I would die of OCD overload

[grenfell]

Erm, the water meter chat, though, I dunno - I've had one about ten years, my bill used to be £45 per month, after the water meter was installed it went down to £11 per month, and now with inflation its up to about £15 ... I certainly use the American rhyme:

"If its yellow let it mellow,
If its brown, flush it down"

We had a meter put in , there are two adults , one child and last year a baby and we too have seen our bills drop. Considering a large part is made up of standing charges etc. as opposed to actual water use it's impossible to reduce beyond a certain limit but to get our bills higher than before we would need to virtually have a tap running continuously .