Water shortage (media) and boreholes

[peter]

Article in recent Daily Mail regarding the hose pipe bans went on about boreholes, wife has since recycled it .

Living as I do within both Three Valleys (tap water) and Thames Water (sewage) I was quite interested in this till I read the price of drilling and size of machinery needed to drill .

Apparently the running costs are just an electric pump and zero charge for tap water, you still have to pay sewerage charges. The borehole if for domestic use and using less than a certain amount per day, I think it was 4400 litres per day is free and does not require an "abstraction" licence .

However to drill down to nearly 300 feet requires a large lorry and room to manoeuvre it, plus about ten thousand pounds. B***** it!


Still can anyone in the know tell me what class of usage a borehole for a allotment site would be and what licence or running charge it would attract?

Hoses are banned on site due to meterage charging, we could certainly get a lorry in there... a rather wistful Peter.

[nog]

The drilling derrics are on a trailer and towed behind a 4x4. all they are a an A frame and a motor that rotates the bit. they screw on 12fl lengths of "bit" as it goes down. They have been using them round here for ages. There is usually two men with it.

[nog]

Also that article in the mail said that the hosepipe ban on allotments was suspect and very grey. And would only be sorted out in court. Our society are taking a legal view on it. I will let you know the outcome

[peter]

NOG, our Council Landlord specifically bans hosepipes on it's sites in the tenancy agreements.
They are metered by site and provide horsetroughs for us to bucket or can around.
I keep thinking I should get a diddy petrol powered pump from MachineMart and stick the suction hose in alternate troughs, but someone is bound to squeal on me.
Regards, Peter.

[Guest]

Arr we own our site. So we and do what we want.

This ban is not very well written. You can use a Jetwash(Now that is connected to a hose). and I understand that you can fill a tank with a house. But you cannot use the hose direct on the ground.

I can see nothing wrong with pumping from one tank to another.

I used my hose today to tie me to the tree to stop me getting washed away bey the torrents of rain that fell.

It was like the first day of the Somme with out the shelling.

[Compo]

Hey folks I know that the water companies have a lot to answer for taking profit and not investing in water collection, but I am a little surprised that everyone is looking at ways of cheating the ban, how about water butts? guttering on sheds and greenhouses? Surely we are all responsible for saving and collecting water sensibly??

I expect a few intersting replies will now follow!!! It also p...d down here today and filled my two new water butts to one third full.

[Tigger]

You might like to look up the programme Radio 4 put out at the beginning of the week about water shortages and hospipe bans (part of Sunday's Gardeners Question Time, April 9th). I heard it and have looked at the transcript and they said that whilst home gardens, no matter how big, were subject to the restrictions, allotments were not. Plus - you can fill as many watering cans, whatever size, as often as you want, in a garden or an allotment, during a ban.

There was another programme last week (You and Yours on Friday April 7th, I think) which included a piece about the amount of water saved by hosepipe bans (often only 5%), the attitude of some water providers (pay the average cost and use as much as you want, as opposed to have a metered supply and pay for what you use) and the lack of information underpinning the decisions made by many water providers.

We have metered water here and I have my tunnels and plots at home, so don't qualify for your survey. Up until now, we don't have a ban but am now storing water (paid for - Mr Severn Trent Man) in anticipation of a hot summer.

[Compo]

I tend to agree Tigger, but how about collecting your own water and saving some money? I know its not a lot but if we all had a few water butts for out gardens and allotments, collected from gutters etc, we would surely help the problem, whilst the government ofwat and every other man and his dog find a solution, we cannot use showers and dishwashers etc without something changing .... or can we???

[Tigger]

I do that too Mr OH and am about about to increase my water butts from 3 to 6. I only water my tunnels. All of my plots are well manured and mulched, so they rarely require watering. Flowers for cutting are grown in huge tubs with gel and get watered with waste from washing up. Flower beds are treated as veg are.

The only thing left is Chantal's liquid gold process which I'm still resisting, but husband seems to like!

[Compo]

Ok Tigger you passed my test, I got four waterbutts at home and am about to put a small electric pump in them to spread the water around the garden a bit more, I use gel and mulch too, would love to have a well or waterhole but hey we cant have it all can we, I also have waterbutts on my allotment. I shall have to use tapwater at some point in the summer, but some people (not you I add) feel they have a god given right to unlimited hose piped water, if we all thought that we would be in big trouble....what do you think?

[Tigger]

Just watch the BBC films of people in Somalia. Not much makes me humble, but they do.

I have a natural stream running through my garden but I know that if I used a pump to extract water, someone would notice.

I work on the principle that some leakage from this keeps a percentage of my garden watered and I'm happy with that.

[Speedy]

You realise that now they've introduced hosepipe bans that it will p*ss with rain all summer.....

[Compo]

Hope you are right speedy but somehow I think this problem will get worse before it gets better

[Speedy]

I agree...we can't rely on sods law to help keep everything watered. I now have water butts on all my downpipes and everything is mulched as deep as possible. Any tips on how make my teenage daughters from leaving the tap on will be gratefully received.

[Compo]

Now that one is tricky!! The kids are so far behind our ideas aren't they, yet it is their planet we are trying to save as they will need it for longer than we will