Hosepipe ban

I have just washed my car with a watering can, shampoo first and then rinse and leather....It's squeaky clean and I sware it was quicker.
Just love a clean car
All the garden is soaking wet all the water butts full..........all's well with the world.
Happy Easter Sunday to all.

 

Ah but
If you employ an apprentice, under the age of 85 (Eightyfive)there is NO MINIMUM WAGE
I have people working as apprentices aged 50 pay is £1.80 per hour, and whilst working over 30 hours we (you the tax payer) pay them £89 per week working tax credit
(By I, I mean NTC)

There you go Dim or your Missus :-)

Jack McH

 

'Apprentice bona fide gardeners' (organised by gangmasters?) That's the sort of thing I was thinking of - But it's still always the poor that carries the can.

 

I thought the idea was that they used a hose instead? ... I'll get my coat

 

Many years after having last used standpipes under drought conditions, the water companies seriously need to consider building de-salination plants? Extraction from local freshwater rivers has a diverse effect on wildlife and flora but there's a much larger expanse of water between us and the continent - English Channel i think, that would be most suitable for extraction / de-salination. Even the tidal River Medway could supply a de-salination plant which would be a much better use for the Hoo Peninsula as opposed to another international airport.

 

Personally I think it's about time that the scientists learned to move clouds about so that we can ship some of our Mancunian rain down south. Problem solved

I'm not on about just moving the water, because I'm damned if I've got to put up with the soggy weather just so someone else can have the benefit!

 

Personally I think its an obscene waste of money to build and energy to run. (As I do building a grid to pump it from Wales / Scotland / Lake District to South East).

Like improving insulation being the most cost effective way of reducing heating requirements, I think rain water harvesting would be the solution to increase available supply from water companies.

Provide the same money [that a desalination plant, or water grid, would cost] in grants to encourage households to install rain water harvesting. Enforce that in the building regs for all new builds (the building regs for New Builds should be way WAY more forceful on requirements than whatever is deemed to be "reasonable" at present - including insulation and so on.) If the government have to subsidise it that's fine by me - it reduces the number of GB £ we give to foreign countries for Fuel, and reduces the ransom they have over us.

Rainwater harvesting for 10,000 Litres costs what? £5,000 ? Who's going to do that? 10,000 Litres of water, on a meter, costs about a tenner (maybe £20 - £30 with sewerage). That's 166 "fills". Rainfall on an "average" 30 sq.M. roof (assume 55 mm per month average) is 18,000 Litres. That's a long payback time.

Provide grants to convert plumbing to use the harvested rainwater for loo-filling too (and require it in building regs for New Builds). Sorted.

FWIW: I did a little Google and found a table of "average" household water usage on the uSwitch website:

Activity Average weekly use Litres used - per activity Total
Bath .................... 2 80 per bath .............. 160 Litres
Flushing the toilet .... 35 8 per flush .............. 280*
Gravity shower ..........7 35 per shower ............ 245*
Power shower ............ 7 80 per shower ............ 560
Washing machine .........3 65 per wash .............. 195*
Dishwasher .............. 4 25 ....................... 100*
Watering the garden ..... 1 540 ...................... 540*
Washing car with bucket . 1 4 buckets = 32 litres ..... 32
Washing car with hose ...1 400 - 480 ................ 440*

Assuming a gravity shower, no baths / no power showers and using a hose to wash car instead of buckets (i.e. all the ones marked "*") then total average use is 280+245+195+100+540+440 = 1,800 Litres per week.

Changing Car Washing from Hose to Bucket saves 408L = 23%
or Car Washing to using Rainwater saves 440L = 24% *
Changing Garden Watering to use Rainwater saves 540L = 30% *
Changing Loo Flush to use Rainwater saves 280L = 16% *

so a decent rainwater harvesting system could save 440+540+280 = 1,260 Litres per week - that's 70% of water used!

Realistically I think people will use Power Shows and/or more washing machine and dishwasher uses, and also more garden watering (amongst us lot at least ...) so there will be more water used for those, but also more saved on even-more-garden-watering. Should still be possible to save 50% if you are a gardener, and if you are not a gardener then you could save 440+280 = 720 from 1260 which would be 57%

Blinking heck ... now I've done those sums what's to stop the government doing just that?

 

Can we not just stick a Jack under Wick and angle the mainland up a bit to let the water flow to where it's needed

 

No I certainly would not :-)

In response to Kristens post
Why it is not / would not be done
Because the people would have control of the harvested water, All the water that goes into the ground would be reduced,
As we would then have access to our own water, the water companies would not be able to sell as much as they do back to us thus less profit, this is why the leaks are not repaired,
If they were to say we have stacks of water, we would object to a price rise, if they have next to none, then they can reduce the amount we use ban hosepipe use and everyone will saly Aaaahhh the water must be conserved you know there is so little of it about

Jack McH

 

But they could "finance us" the rainwater harvesting stuff Jack ... all companies want to be "banks" after all ... that will make them happy

 

This thread's gone very quiet

 

Stroppy Update ...

1. I have still no reply from Anglian Water to my many questions

2. It has not stopped raining it seems and the local reservoir is now 90% full but we are told to expect an extended hosepipe ban

 

You making a joke? or being naive?

Not enough water flows down the rivers in Anglian region to supply the water needs, so the reservoirs are secondary to boreholes; it can rain as hard as it likes, it won't get water into the aquifer for ages.

Rainfall for April is close to average ... so even if your reservoir is full the other, main, sources of supply are seriously depleted by the fact that the rainfall in Anglian region during the previous 18 months was the lowest for 100 or 150 years (or something like that). Borehole levels are lower than the '76 drought.

It feels like its been raining non-stop here, and the ground is sodden, but I've only had 18mm of rainfall during April.