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Guest paul y

I was on this forum having a discussion about ro water versus the cost of water butts and what to do if it doesn't rain earlier this week.

if your on a water meter then forget it, im not and a small ro doesn't seem like such a bad idea, £65 online filters can be replaced once a year for £18, 50 gallons ro water a day, or a 4 mile drive to fish shop to pick up ro, 5 trips to the fish shop would pay for the ro machine almost.

the waste from an ro is the same if you do it yourself or buy it so the waste as a negative point is redundant.

never need to worry about rain water, using tap water again and I only need 2 water butts in the garden not 20 like most people and it only needs to run at the most for 2 days a fortnight.

plus £65 is nothing compared to the value of the plants I now have

sensible insurance policy against really dry periods and I damned if im using tap water, not the crap that comes out of my tap, its barely drinkable after going through a brita filter let alone raw.

and I also see it like this if Bristol water cant get there product sorted then they can suffer 1k gallons of it going on my garden whilst I take a 100 gallons of it all cleaned and scrubbed ready for my plants, if they cant supply clean decent water that doesn't destroy kettles for the £35 a month they take off me in bills then im doing whatever I need to to get it up to standard, plus my local fish shop gets it from the same reservoir so whats the difference if I take it instead?

regards paul

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Fortunately I am not in a position whereby I would need to consider buying a RO unit to provide me with water, although last year I did need to buy some to get me by, and I fully sympathise with people further South that suffer with a lack of water on a more regular basis than I do but my one issue with RO units is the amount of waste water they produce.

I appreciate your argument Paul that if you are buying RO water then the waste water issue is the same as if you produced it yourself and I would accept this if you are using this just in times of emergency but if it is being used as an everyday means of watering your plants then I am afraid the vast amount of waste water that is produced is, in my view, unacceptable. With the ever growing population and use of water reliant items such as dishwashers the demand for water is obviously increasing and I do not see that it is acceptable nor environmentally friendly to be wasting so much of this natural resource. If the Water Companies were allowing the same amount of water to go to waste there would, quite rightly, be a public outcry.

Dave

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Guest paul y

only ever in an emergency when all my butts have run dry and I have no other option, I would only run it long enough to refill a water butt and then I would be as miserly as hell before I ran it again, every bit of reject water would go into other barrels I have and that would be used on the garden, that way even my waste is going to a good use, I wonder what the fish shops do with their reject water? plus I don't like the idea of mileage to and from the fish shop, car pollution etc

regards paul

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I have 7 water butts & they keep me self sufficient for 2 months

they were getting pretty low ( about 12inches of water in each)

The last 2 days of rain here have filled them up

i used to keep Cola bottles full of water as a back up (before i had so many Butts)

Its hard to part with money to "just buy a big bucket" when there are so many

plants to buy!!!!

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Guest paul y

the rain in Bristol has barely added to my butts, maybe a quarter full in each, the weather is predicting localised flooding in Bristol today, everywhere but my road

butts are far too expensive, I can get ibc for £40 but where to put it? plus they are fugly, off to do a rain dance in the garden,

elvis if your popping over bring the rain homie bring the rain

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I bought a Brita filter jug about 3 years ago just for such an eventuality, and it has saved my plants on many an occasion.  Plus we found we actually like the taste of the filtered water. 

 

I have bogs out the back too, and they have never complained over filtered water.

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Guest paul y

ive wondered just how effective carbon filters are for that purpose, problem is it would take a week to brita filter 200 litres of water. im getting close to buying that ro unit, I just know in my bones the day I buy it will be the start of the WETTEST SUMMER EVER!!!!

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From the Brita web site FAQ:

"The BRITA water filter cartridge only partially removes the hardness from drinking water. This part is temporary hardness, which causes scale deposits during cooking. It does not remove all of the minerals from the water. It reduces the concentration of calcium and magnesium with cation ion exchange resins, but theses substances are not completely removed as in desalination systems or industrial plants that use reverse osmosis or distillation processes, for example. "

So not ideal but it might be better than our very hard water in Herts?

Cheers,

Steve

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I sometimes wonder about the rainwater coming off our roof, carrying all the grit and minerals from the slates, along with dissolved pigeon poo chock full of nitrates.  Looking at it that way, Brita filtered water doesn't sound half so bad.

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Guest paul y

only use a brita to clean rain water, it is next to useless for cleaning tap water, truth be told I use one for my kettle and coffee machine and it still gets scale.

plus a brita jug with spare filters is close to £30-40 an extra £20 gets the basic 3 stage ro unit which actually does clean water properly.

personally speaking for the sake of the cost versus the value of my plants and the fact that all my waste gets collected and used, makes an ro unit for emergency use a must, a million water butts wont make it rain, driving to and from a fish shop to buy ro who incidentally waste 1k gallons a day making ro, when I can do it at home only when nescesary and waste 0 gallons of water makes diy ro far better for the environment.  hose pipe bans don't apply to ro units either as they connect straight to the mains feed and I have spoke to Bristol water about the whole scenario and they told me that from their point of view they would much rather have a private resident doing this than a commercial unit providing it wholesale,  oh and they told me that due to what I grow and its value that they would allow dispensation if I ever had a meter fitted and they are sending me some free water butts!

apparently and not surprisingly your local water authority will be all over helping someone who wants to help store rain water and help prevent runoff flooding, 

regards paul

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Paul how did you talk them into the free water butts ? 

 

Yorkshire Water do buy one get one half price on water butts and there reasonably priced for the full price one.

 

Simon

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Guest paul y

I just spoke to them all nice and politely from a conservation point of view, I was lucky I spoke to a girl who was mad keen on conservation, absolutely fascinated in what im growing (she is going to pop round to buy a few bits) and was really keen to help,  they get quite a few calls about storing water and being flooded by neighbours who have block paved their entire gardens,  they totally agreed about how bad bristols water is but it would take millions to upgrade the system and it falls within eu limits (just).

collecting and storing water should be supported by your water company, some states in America its actually illegal, collecting rain water or snow run off is classed as theft of a public commodity and you can be imprisoned for stealing rain!

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That seems a bit mad. If I was to breathe in those states, even on my own property would I be accused of theft of a public resource? What if I inflate the paddling pool, is that 'storing' public air? What if it then rained? Would I be illegally storing 'public' water then?

My stash (of rainwater) is just for personal use officer...

Cheers,

Steve

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