Water shortage (media) and boreholes

[Tigger]

Don't start me - showers instead of baths, not running the tap whilst you're cleaning your teeth, washing your hair..........need I go on?

Sorry - it's one of my 'things'!!

I love shopping, shoes, jackets, plants, books, in exchange.

[Speedy]

I've tried all of that.....I've even taken the bath plug away......I think its some kind of teenage mental block or selective hearing when when Dad is nagging on about saving water for his beloved plants.

[Chantal]

One thing that drives me crazy is my newish combi boiler. If I want some hot water to rinse a couple of things, I have to run the tap which is hot for a 5 seconds (?), then cold for the next 10-15 seconds as it comes through the pipes, and then hot as the water comes from the boiler. I have to leave the tap on for the next item rather than turning it off and then on again, as each time the tap is turned low or off, the boiler switches off and we go all through the hot/cold routine again. If I put the plug in I have to let the cold water go first to get enough hot water, unless I fill the sink, so it's quicker to rinse. I have a choice of wasting water or gas. My old Baxi boiler had a little cold water in the pipes when you started and then hot all the way. This boiler's on and off like a tart's knickers!

Reading this I think I'll position a bucket in the kitchen and catch the cold water in a jug to fill the water butts with. What a palavar!

[pigletwillie]

Any one would think we were a third world country on the equator, not a first world one sat in a temperate zone.

There is plenty of water in this country, but not necesarilly in the right place. A water company in the south is quite happy to pump water (by the millions of litres) off marshland into the sea as its cheaper than pumping it into a reservoir. Then they impose a hosepipe ban.

Unfortunately we are paying the price of over development and loss of front gardens to tarmac stopping water getting into the ground, instead it goes into the sewage network and most is lost.

Only a dumb ass like Prescot is prepared to build a million homes in the driest part of Britain bar Norfolk without thought.

We have 5 1000 litre IBC containers on our 2 plots, two of which harvest rainfall from sheds, 2 are situated by the polytunnel and 1 by the compostt bins. These last 3 are filled via hosepipe for use over the winter when our water is turned off or as contingency if there is a hosepipe ban later in the year. We used about 100 litres over the winter as we had reasonable amounts of rain and our soil is in good order and holds onto moisture.

In our area you can get a £70 rebate on your water bill if you divert water from your gutters into either a soakaway or storage and not into the drains.

[Sue]

I'm in the Thames Water region and we are on a total hosepipe ban for watering the garden, including drip and leaky hose irrigation systems, which is daft because these are really water efficient.

You can however still fill your swimming pool or use a pressure washer and the car washes are all still open Oh and they spray washed the Thames Water head office building in Reading this week as well to add insult to injury

However, I have a plan - on hot days after the water butts have run dry, me and him indoors are having water fights with high powered water pistols around the veg plot. Not our fault if we are rotten shots and we miss each other all the time

Sue

[peterf]

hi all.its that wet up here iv'e never used a hose in 20 years.plenty of fym dug into the plot beats any sort of watering regime.what is annoying is people watering there lawns on a sunday afternoon to keep their bloody grass green.if they left it to have a few drought periods it will come back better than ever.our water is now owned by a french company (northumbrian water)it is wetter and colder up here and now our (french) water authority is looking at supplying southern regions with water from kielder resevoir at a cost.it seems to me that southern regions have an earlier start, and longer growing season than us up here and now you want our bloody water.what ever happened to a level playing field.COME GROW UP NORTH

[peter]

Piglet, do you know where the driest bit of the UK is

Its in Essex

The problem is that we ARE a first world country.

How often do you have a bath or shower?
How much water do you use when preparing root veg?
Do you have a washing machine?
A dishwasher?
A clean car?
A green lawn?

One of the titbits I read reckoned the UK had the highest per head water consumption in Europe.

Living near Stanstead Airport you do not want to get me started on Mr Prescott.

Suffice to say London will expand to meet its third airport.
The excuse used to be it was "airport related", piss-poor excuse as all the baggage handlers I know either live on council estates or in North London.
The people buying the five/six bed detached houses for about £600,000 also tend to have all the water using domestic appliances you can think of and they love their green lawn and clean car.........

[Geoff]

Not wishing to put you off but I have organised a borehole installation.
I converted a barn in 1985 and the water supply was a spring we shared with the farmhouse. By the time the farm wasn’t a working farm and had become a hamlet of 5 houses with still some farming water usage via a drinking trough the spring became unreliable. It was probably partly through neglect, the activities of a rabbit warren and some slightly drier summers – it should have coped really as they used to milk 100 cows. When it failed one house went alone with a borehole (don’t put that word through some spellcheckers by the way) then the remaining 4 of us plus the user of the drinking trough went ahead with one of our own in 1996. Although the drilling part cost about £3,500 by the time the head works, piping, pressure vessel, building to house it, electrics etc had been completed we had spent £9,500 even though we did quite a lot of the work ourselves. This gave us a 5” fully cased hole 32 metres deep. Eventually we also had to add a treatment system to remove iron which cost a further £3,000. It probably costs us about £450 a year to run between the 5 of us including treatment renewal. The overall economics obviously depend on time to a major failure, 10 years so far so good. We didn’t have a choice – no mains available. So with a septic tank we pay no water rates just have to pay for the privilege of fertilising a farmer’s field every now and then.

[peter]

Just reading that the RHS are supposed to be shelling out £45,000.00 to drill a 500 foot borehole for supplying the Chelsea Flower Show with water.

[Mr Potato Head]

... I thought the 'idea' of a ban on hosepipes (rightly or wrongly) was to penalise people like the eejit next to me that leaves his lawn sprinkler on 24-7!

Apart from that particular scenario, the ban seems pretty ridiculous in practice...

... and as for prescott, it looks like he'll be laying low for a while...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4945170.stm

[Chantal]

You're right, from what I heard of his exploits this morning the last thing he'll be worrying about is hosepipe bans. How she COULD!!!!

[Mr Potato Head]

Turns me to mash...

[Guest]

Just reading that the RHS are supposed to be shelling out £45,000.00 to drill a 500 foot borehole for supplying the Chelsea Flower Show with water.

Pity there is a hose pipe ban on or they could just dump a lenght of hose in the thames which is 100 yards away.

[jopsy]

we have a butt-our hosepipe wouldnt stretch to our garden/allotment!
i may need to invest in another from mole valley farmers tomorrow!
dh can pay!