Water restrictions.

[nanscombe]

An article from the Telegraph.

Moving water with canals can be a challenge

Now that's a novel idea. :lol:

I did have one idea for people with a long garden. I wonder if you could have two (or more) water butts linked together with a (hose) pipe. One by the house, linked to your downpipe, and the other somewhere in the garden where you needed the water.

That way as the one by the house fills up the other one should be kept at a similar level, assuming your garden is level. That way you would have water available where you need it.

 

[Digit]

I see on the news this week they are planning to open up some old canals and use them to supply water to London from the Severn.

That's gonna need a lot of pumping, and frankly I doubt that it will supply that much water. It would not be possible to use the canals as a major supply route IMO as too great a flow would scour the road bed.

Roy.

 

[Lowlife]

Leave it alone. It'll survive no matter how brown it goes

We have two lawns, or did until I got fed up trying to keep the one at the back of the house alive, so I dug up all the grass and sowed it with meadow grass and wildflower seed, it thrives with no attention except cutting twice in spring and autumn. The soil never dries out because the grass is tall in summer and shades the surface, and it looks great, lots of colour which changes from month to month as different flowers bloom, and always loads of bees, butterflies, and other insects buzzing around.

I just wish She would let me do the same with the other lawn at the side of the house, no matter how much attention it gets it always looks rubbish!

 

[Digit]

Thanks Roy, but a little too much information.. :mrgreen:

I thought you'd be pleased! :lol:
On the water butt subject we have them all around the place, we also have three outside taps with hose reels alongside.
Despite a large garden my wife has pots all over the place, and to be frank, I quite like using a watering can as opposed to unreeling a hose.

Roy.

 

[Lowlife]

I agree, far less is lost to evaporation when you use a watering can, because you water at the base of the plants and it soaks straight into the soil, and water after the sun has gone down.

At our old house I installed a huge water tank fed from the downpipes off the roof, this fed a soaker hose that went all around the garden, turned the tap on for an hour every evening and everything stayed nice and green, and the tank rarely needed topping up from the mains.

There are lots more ways to save it in the garden, deep mulching, plenty of organic matter dug into the soil...

People also need to learn how to use less in the home, toilets don't need flushing every time somone has a pee, the bathwater doesn't have to come up to your chin, showering doesn't get you any cleaner after the first few minutes, unfortunately we have come to regard clean water as an infinite commodity to be used, and wasted, as we like. I suggest making meters compulsory for everyone, then a huge price hike after an initial generous allowance for essentials based on the number of occupants.

 

[Digit]

Yes indeed, it's only when you have to carry water that you begin to understand just how heavy it is and how little we could use if we put our minds to it.
I don't know how high the upper pound of the Cotswold Canal is but that is the height that water would have to be lited from the Severn. Lifting water to any height requires a lot of power, and if the height is substantial it cannot reasonably be achieved in one 'lift,' the pressure on the pipes would simply be too great. This means multi stage pumping with hold ing ponds at each stage.
Also the canals could not supply London with an 'on demand' supply. What they could do is maintain a reservoir, pouring it into the Thames is really silly, it would simply run to the sea so most would be lost, and pumping water into the sea is an expensive way of emptying the Severn!

Roy.

 

[Lowlife]

I have a cunning plan, use the water flowing down to London to generate the electricity to pump it up from the Severn!

 

[Digit]

Nice idea! Unfortunately that's a bit like putting your hand in you back trouser pocket and lifting yourself off the ground! :lol:

Roy.

 

[Benchwayze]

Not really into gardening these days. (It's about all I can do to stay at the Workbench). I mooted the idea of wildflowers to SWMBO. She, being the main gardener, said, 'I've not spent years trying to eradicate weeds, just to have them sown on purpose.' So there you go.

Last year, because we were both 'incapacitated' due to various medical procedures, the flower garden got overgrown with naturally sown wild-flowers. What a sight, and yes, insects galore! But she wanted to get someone in to dig the plot over and start again. (As long as whoever did the job, didn't uproot our bluebells.) :roll:
I just can't win...

 

[Benchwayze]

.... pouring it into the Thames is really silly, it would simply run to the sea so most would be lost, and pumping water into the sea is an expensive way of emptying the Severn!

Roy.

Our elected servants in Westminster (You know, the ones who believe they were actually elected to rule us) wouldn't care about that. As long as the Thames has enough water to float the new Royal Barge at the 'Big-Do', that's all that matters. 8)

 

[Dibs-h]

You can abstract up to 20m3 a day without a license - that's a lot of water. If our rates keep climbing the way they have been - will seriously look into a borehole. Unfortunately access is limited to the back garden - 1m wide gate, but the drive and front garden should be big enough. If it cost 3.5K - that would be a payback of around 5yrs for us, which is more than acceptable.

Dibs

 

[Lowlife]

I think if I could recoup the money in as little as 5 years I'd go for it too, but with our water bill being as low as it is I wouldn't actually save anything at all, so it would never pay for itself!

For me it's the ethics of using expensive drinking water on the garden which is just wrong, equally using it for any purpose other than drinking and cooking. If I could extract water clean enough for bathing, flushing the toilet, cleaning the car, stuff like that, then I think it's worth doing, especially if I can do it for a few hundred quid rather than a few thousand, and it seems I ought to be able to do that.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

This may or may not be true, but apparently early in M.Thatchers govt. it was mooted that the cheapest and best way to proceed was to subsidise bottled water, because something like 98% of our mains water is not drunk------so therefore there is no need to treat it. It was dismissed out of hand, apparently, as being a bit third world..............seems quite sensible to me.

 

[Lowlife]

Makes you think doesn't it, maybe not such a bad idea? Supply cheap semi-treated water through the mains, clean enough for anything other than cooking and drinking, then individuals can have the option of buying bottled water, fitting RO units etc... Mind you bottled water isn't exactly environmentally friendly, water is heavy stuff to distribute.

 

[Benchwayze]

For me it's the ethics of using expensive drinking water on the garden which is just wrong, equally using it for any purpose other than drinking and cooking. If I could extract water clean enough for bathing, flushing the toilet, cleaning the car, stuff like that, then I think it's worth doing, especially if I can do it for a few hundred quid rather than a few thousand, and it seems I ought to be able to do that.

LL,

I reckon your idea of a large tank to collect rain water would supply all your needs on the non-personal use of water.
One thing for certain is, should I ever be forced to have a water meter, I definitely will have a water tank to collect rainwater, for flushing, and other household tasks. I'll be darned if I will flush away water I paid for! :twisted:

 

[Benchwayze]

This may or may not be true, but apparently early in M.Thatchers govt. it was mooted that the cheapest and best way to proceed was to subsidise bottled water, because something like 98% of our mains water is not drunk------so therefore there is no need to treat it. It was dismissed out of hand, apparently, as being a bit third world..............seems quite sensible to me.

I don't know about that. You wouldn't have any control over fools drinking sub-standard water. I'm not in love with the idea of a 'Nanny-State', but epidemics could cost the Taxpayer. The 'Iron Lady', had one or two other sensible ideas that got booted into touch; by the feckless and reckless ISTR! :wink:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

:wink: We haven't got any control over fools anyway!