Sod's Law...

Read in the paper today that you should not use the term water butt as it has sexual connotations, please use the term rainwater recycling system.
What is this country coming to.

 

Not sure the bureauPrats have thought that one through: won't R.R.S. be pronounced "Ar$e"?

 

I used to work for an American based company who called themselves Aon Risk Services. Naturally the network was divided up according to which division and where in the world you were. Those of us in the UK were in the ARS.UK subdomain for a while, before the yanks realised what we Brits were calling it, then we were rebranded ad Aon Ltd.

 

Reminds me of the American computer company Wang setting up their Service Department in the UK and deciding to call it the same as the US division: Wang Care - I kid you not!

 

If you had a load of butts and you had it set up to overflow from the first to the second etc etc. Which butt should you get your water from? Share it out among them?

 

If the butts are at the same level (within a few inches) and you syphon between them (or connect the taps at the bottom) then they will maintain a single level ... then you can draw water from any of them and that one will "refill" from the others, so its level will rise and overall all the butts level will fall a bit.

If you overflow from one to the next then if doesn't make any difference which one you take the water from - when it next rains all the ones "above" it will overflow until that one is full. However, once the butt you use is empty you will have to get your water from a different one - until the next rain causes all the "higher" ones to overflow and fill yours.

Thus I think syphon / linked taps is best - but they do have to be at the same level, give or take a few inches (the max water depths will be the overflow level of the lowest tank)