Environment Agency: Harvesting rainwater for domestic uses guide

[billt]

Wonder how you fare with composting toilets and reed bed filtration if the water company did not supply your water at all?

If the water co. don't process any of your effluent water, foul or surface, they won't (or shouldn't) charge you.

[Paulh_Boats]

Ivan,

Water meters are about £10 on fleabay and easy to fit (you are welcome to borrow mine) and within a week you will get a good idea of yearly consumption. If its less than about 165 m3 then you can save money - Severn Trent fit meters for free and you can laugh all the way to bank!

We use about 65 m3 and are saving about £190 each year from the fixed charge of £425 without a meter*; if we can collect enough rainwater for the loos we can save another 30 m3.  Its a no-brainer for a family that is careful with water.

http://www.stwater.co.uk/upload/pdf/Could_you_save.pdf

*payback time was zero once the meter was fitted!

[petertc]

When you look at things saving water is very cost effective, when you think it is costing you in the region of £3 for each m^3 of water once you have been charged for the disposal as well!

The biggest saving is from the toilets these do use a lot of water and especially if flush every time.

if you take an average of 7 litres a flush say 4 people in the hose the toilet could be flushed 16 time or more a day. That is a about 40 m^3 a year so £120.

put in some hippo bags or some 500ml drink bottles that cuts the amount used and try and get people to flush less.

OK there are times when you may need to flush twice and other times of the month when you need to flush more, to do this it cost's pennies ( no pun intended) and you could save your self £5 a month.

We have gone from using about 120m^3 ( this was after stopping watering the garden) to 50m^3 since i put my system in and adopting the above measures.

My system cost about £600-700 in total ( inc solar panels battery pump etc). and i am saving 70m^3 of water a year (£210) in 4 years the system will pay for it's self.
If you can DIY like me you do well out of things. I have to change the filter in the pump system once every 6 months that is about £5.

[Paulh_Boats]

peterc,

That is an excellent summary - well done.

-paul

[SUD Solutions]

Anyone understand where the 18 days/5% figure comes from? Is that how long it is between when it normally rains or something?

Most of the rule-of-thumb figures stem from the German market. They aren't really all that applicable in the UK however (not sure if they even give accurate estimates in Germany to be honest). If you size a domestic rainwater tank on them then they tend to overestimate the optimum size.

[martin W]

Just a though on harvesting, surely it would make good sense to invest in a rain meter of some sort before you speck your tanks? SImple weatyher statiojn of ebay about £65, does rain, temp, pressure, wind. You could then work out average rainfall per week / month and then how much you could colect off your roof.

Also phoned welsh water yesterday as I could not find my outside stop cock. Basically they seem to say I can have and internal meter fitted. (eventually found that the one in my neighbours garden switches both of our houses off - well it would if it worked correctly).

ANyone had  a meter fitted internally - how big is it? is it similar in size to the el-cheapos of fleabay - GSD8.

Goning to fit my ebay one now to see how much water we use - also found one for £10 to connect to the hosepipe to see how much we use i the garden.

[kristen]

"also found one for £10 to connect to the hosepipe to see how much we use i the garden."

I approximate that by comparing Winter's and Summer's weekly meter readings

[martin W]

I wanted to put on on the garden hose as well as the house one, so I can see how much is 'wasted' in the garden out of the total before we commit to going on a meter. I am sure that we will save about £150-200 a year by going meter, but I want to have a rought Idea before we do. Plus I can see how much extra saving will be made using rain water for outside,etc.

[paul-n]

I had an argument with severn trent over the rain water aspect of my bill

why should i pay drainage charge for water that falls as rain, and will i get a rebate in a dry year.
Of course not cos they say it all averages out.
Yet if i connected all the down pipes to the veg garden i still have to pay them for nothing.

Amy

Severn Trent charge for the removal of rain water from your property IF it goes into the drains OR flows from driveways onto the road and into the drains , this water gives them loads of problems at the sewage works and more people are having their front gardens paved increasing the volume all the time.

We live in a newish house and I was told by the site foreman that the builders had routed the gutters to soak away's and installed ACO drains at the edge of the drive [ also to a soak away ] and we could get a rebate for the charge levied for rainwater removal.

Severn Trent make this as hard as possible , you have to get a leaflet and draw on it your ground plan , this I did with arrows just showing where I thought the soak away was.

They then will test your property [ with dyes and drains up etc] if it fails the test you are charged for it !

I have done this successfully for the current property , and the one we lived in before.

regards Paul     

[pipesmokingman]

wish I was paying the equivelent of 3 quid a M3

my latest bill from south west water 

water : 3x 1.6911 = 5.07 + standing charge 8.27  = 13.35 GBP

sewrage : 1 95% OF  3x 2.7637 = 7.88 +standing charge  7.08  = 14.96 GBP

total 28.31 GBP

so thats "in effect "  9.43666 ( r ) - per cube  ( GBP  )

thank the lord i have my rain water system or it would be a LOT more

robbing  ( unprintable ) !! 

dont move to devon or cornwall if your family uses a lot of water !!

MORE PROFITS FALLING OUT THE SKY THIS MORNING - HO HUM 

[matt_w]

When we got our meter from South East Water if it does not save you money in the first year they will revert you to your old charging method (I'm pretty sure they won't remove the meter however!)  I'm pretty sure the other water companies do the same - might be worth considering if its still soemthing that they do.

Our water and waste removal is quite a bit lower than Peters - £1.40 per 1000 litres. Water is from one company and waste is from Thames, it must be downhill in one direction!

[Mudman]

yes if you don't like the meter, they revert to old charging method for you but it says that the next owner will have to use the meter charging system. . .
i think they should speed up the compulsary metering programme as it's the fastest way to reduce water useage- but there should also be information on more ways to reduce water usage- i understand that airated taps use a lot less water for similar effect if running tap to wash your hands but i could not find any when i redid our bathroom....
they should also encourage rain water harvesting rather than treat it with suspicion.

meanwhile we live on the 4th floor of a council block and there's no space at all to fit a water meter without considerable plumbing changes..... when will they deal with that kind of problem i wonder.

[Baz]

Don't have the bill to hand but think South West charged £12 for zero usage.
Instead of getting your own rain guage search 'wunderground' it's the weather underground listing hundreds of amateur weather enthusiasts who often publish current and historical data. If you can't find a close one average a couple either side of your location.

[Iain]

Hi
Down in the SW,possibly other places as well. If all the rainwater stays on the property (ie doesn't run into the drainage system directly you can get a lower rate for sewerage.also if my waste water from bath sinks etc went to a soak-away/storage I could also get a reduction.(this was last year, don't know if it has changed) Unfortunately the rain on the front of my house and drive goes into the road and would be very difficult to divert to my storage tanks around the back. We store 6000 lts and so far in 4 years hasn't run out. 2 people in the house, washing machine and toilets. I meter the rainwater used and is about 2000 lts /month. so saves about £10/month. So changing to a meter(£30/month saving) and collecting rainwater paid for itself in about 2 years. For our house 6000 lt storage is about right. We have been down to 500 lts a one time. The secret is to improve the % collected from the roof. I have to clean the filters quite frequenty otherwise I loose a lot to the drains.
Iain

[Den]

So if you're on a meter, you tell the water company about the soakaway, but not the rainwater harvesting system.