My new dustbin, er, rainwater overflow container
| On Saturday I went into town and bought a black dustbin (price: £12.99). I cut a hole in the lid. After transferring about a foot of water from the water butt to the dustbin, I was able to cut another hole in the side of the water butt, about six inches below the top. Then I connected the water butt and the dustbin with a length of hose pipe. Hey presto – massive transfer of rainwater from the former to the latter. I realised that there was a bit of leakage at the water butt end of the hose pipe, so I plugged it with an old plastic bag. Being able to fill my watering can by scooping water from the dustbin rather than opening the tap of the water butt will be an enormous time saver. And the lid will stop bits and pieces of detritus from accumulating in there. |  |
Our landlords (who left us our previous, now defunct water butt), had got as far as drilling a hole in the butt and attaching a hose pipe, but they hadn’t thought of using anything bigger than a bucket to catch the overflow of water. Speaking of detritus, the picture above right shows the high tech filtration device that I use for the water butt, aka a 50p tea strainer.
Categories: equipment Tags: drought, dustbin, rain water, water butt, watering