Water Butts

[MN]

Anyone know of a good (cheap!) supplier of water butts and large water containers?

 

[wookey]

Depends where you are. In Cambridge, Chivers sell used Juice concentrate containers for a very reasonable fiver or so, or at least have in the past - but I'm not sure they are even on that site anymore.

This lot: http://www.deltacontainers.com  seem reasonably priced, but delivery is a bit steep if you are nowhere near manchester

I've seen other suppliers of used large kegs fairly cheap, but can't find any now. This is the best I can find:
http://www.waterbuttsnbottles.co.uk/kegs.htm  (new, so still 30 quid for a 220l keg) and http://www.water-tanks.net/ who have all sorts of quite big tanks, but nothing that I would call cheap.

Someone agricultural on here might know the right place to go. 40 quid for a water butt does seem to be taking the weasel pee, which seems to be the standard garden centre rate. At a fiver each we got 5.

[Smooth Hound]

The ones i bought were used to carry the liquid that they use for baby wipes , if that is of any help. Afraid i dont know where they came from originally as i bought them at a car boot sale.

[Paulh_Boats]

Loads of different sizes and shapes are available from here:

http://www.smithsofthedean.co.uk/

Our water butt literally saved us from a smelly disaster in the 2007 summer floods, had our water off for 10 days in sunny Gloucestershire. Its one of best tree-hugging investments you can make.

-Paul

[Ivan]

There are some cheap IBCs (1000litre containers) on ebay, if you have the space. NB, you need to obscure from sunlight, or get a black one to prevent green algal growth....assuming that would bother you.

[mespilus]

How large is large and whereabouts are you based?

Check your local chemical distributors.

They have normally got a yard of dark blue hdpe drums that are, to the eternal shame of our wasteful society,
single use.
Prices vary according to how full the yard is.
I routinely buy 150L drums for £5.
150L as these have the lever lock lids that can be clamped shut, with black lids that can be easily cut to allow pipe ingress.

Few commercial companies can rinse and reuse as their management of effluent would be too varied.

Look for those that are the least noxious, often acrylic emulsions, with trade names ending in '....mul'

If those available have tailings in them, no problem, thanks to this handy guide:
These acrylic emulsions are supplied at around pH 14.
Lob some vinegar in.
The white emulsion should start to lose some density of colour as the emulsion breaks and solids are precipitated.
Similar to purposefully curdling milk.

Leave for a few days, then you should be able to see white lumps/bits/sheets at the bottom.
These can be fished out and are now innocuous.
Dispose down your local dump/tip.
Liquid is also innocuous.
Tip into open topped container and leave to evaporate.

[wookey]

And there is this lot:
http://www.thetankexchange.com/home.htm

Who have been supplying large and small ex-juice containers for many years. Quaint website, but good prices.

[wyleu]

Is there any mileage in connecting water butts together?
 Perhaps fill the first half of the first with sand and a grill at the top to work as a filter? It would allow the collection of a considerable quantity of water and provide some degree of filtering. without too much effort?
How might you interconnect them for most efficient filtering.

[Shay]

Here you go, a gravity fed water filter system.....

http://www.inthewake.org/b1water3.html

[County 4x4]

I can highly recommend an ebay seller with the ID "whywaste"

Just ordered a conical 450 litre IBC from him on Bank Holiday Monday, and at half nine this morning it was being unloaded off the back of a Palletline truck at our place in Lancaster. His prices are a lot more reasonable than many I've seen too. I thought the Tank Exchange prices were a little high for recycled stuff to be honest. As with lots of items like these, it's usually the shipping that is the deciding factor - and if you can find a local supplier then so much the better.

Cheers,

Andy