There are many benefits to using water butts and water storage systems in your garden and greenhouse. The first and obvious reason is because of the water charges that will be coming into effect in 2015. As of yet we still don’t know what the rates are or what the annual fees will be. Some estimates suggest that it could be 750 euros per household per year. Of course we have been told that houses will be charged per amount of water they consume. So with effective water storage systems you can seriously reduce this figure
In 2013 we had a long period of warm dry weather. This could become a common event for Irish summers putting more pressure on water demands as we want to ensure good crop yields on our vegetable beds, maintain a healthy lawn, and water young and establishing plants in the garden. With water rates, watering plants & lawns will become completely unsustainable
While being good to your pocket water butts and water storage systems are also very beneficial to the environment as a whole. Saving water is essential over the year and by fitting a water storage system to collect water from the roof of your home could collect and save approximately 100,000 litres of water over a 12 month period. This water would otherwise end up being wasted away into gullies can instead be used around the garden when and where it is needed the most
There are a whole range of water storage systems available for each specific garden. For larger scale water storage, you can invest in storage tanks with capacities of anywhere from 5000 to 80000 litres. These can be buried underground, fitted with filters and submersible pumps allowing for water to be used in a number of ways. These large tanks would harvest rainwater collected on large farming sheds or industrial sized buildings where total rainfall in one year could total over 500,000 litres
A more modest water storage system come in the shape of domestic water butts, and these come in sizes of 80 to 400 litres in capacity. While the larger tanks would collect water from large buildings, water butts can easily be connected to existing down pipes of homes, garages, polytunnels or greenhouses
This water harvested from water butts is ideal for watering garden plants because its temperature and nutrient content is most suited to plants. While hose pipe water can be a few degrees too cold and will contain fluoride and chlorine, grey water will not. Therefore plants and vegetables will not experience the same shock if watered from water storage systems and water butts
With the complete water system you can make your irrigation of lawns, vegetables and plants 100% automated
Water butts, submersible pumps, solar powered timers and irrigation lines can all be put to use to develop your own custom built watering system, without any costs or hassle