Solitary chicken - need advice

[Willow]

Looks like this was last discussed a couple of years ago and I wondered if anyone had done more with rainwater harvesting, reuse of grey water etc. Obviously our gardens haven't needed the water so much this summer but on the other hand there has been a plentiful supply of rain !

 

I've started putting a lot more water butts around eg. off new shed and intend to put them off any new garden buildings.

 

I'm very tempted by rainwater harvesting systems but one of the challenges is the cost (which is going down for diy options), the other is physically getting a tank into the back garden.

 

I wondered what other peoples views/experiences were ?

Edited September 12, 2008 by Guest

[Guest]

There's no 'NO' button!

 

I don't do any of those things because I don't know how to, not because I don't want to. I keep looking at water butts because I'd like one in the chicken run, but that means putting a gutter on the chicken run roof and I suspect my DH doesn't know where to start - so it doesn't go any further.

 

I will get round to it though. And I would love grey water recycling and think all new-builds should come with it built in.

[Willow]

Good point Ginette, I just edited it to add one

Thanks Patricia

[Karen & co.]

This has reminded me to connect one of the butts up that I moved last year, and haven't reconnected yet

 

Another job for the list

 

Karen x

[bokbokbok]

We just have one water butt on the green house but have installed guttering on the chicken run in preparation for a butt there too.

 

I would very much love it if it became law to have to collect your own water for the likes of flushing the toilet . . . (if you have the room to gather it)

 

I had a friend in Bermuda a while back and they have to gather and store all their own water and even get government issued guppies to put in the under-house tanks to keep the water from going stale. I LOVE that idea

 

The theory is good but we haven't followed through just yet.

[Snowy]

I've just made a start on this this year by adding guttering and a water butt to the chicken run. I can't believe how much water a shower produces! I have to keep draining it off! (I save it in buckets and use it for cleaning the cube and watering the hens as well as watering my houseplants). All I can think of now is just how much is being wasted everytime it rains!

[Milly]

This is an interesting topic - we have a very large roof and could gather lots more water than we do now. But any of the big reservoirs seem very expensive (plus you would have to have a system to get it back into the house). I would be interested to know if there are any cheaper systems.

 

We have a rain butt - hardly needed this year as the rain has kept everything pretty much swamped. Last year it was worth its weight in gold when the mains water was off for several days during the floods. We used it for flushing the toilet - not sure what we would have done otherwise.

 

Milly

[Lesley]

We keep installing water butts and our next job is to put guttering on each of the 5 poultry pens to fill up the water butts we have there. Each pen has a water butt and a galvanised drinker with a ball valve but at the moment we fill the butts from the hosepipe.

 

We also need to set up some large tanks by the big barn and harvest the water from that roof - with an overflow running to the patch of ground where we have planted willow withies via a leaky hose and then on into the stream.

 

Our house was a newbuild 2 years ago and I wish it had been set up with grey water harvesting at the time it was built

[lisa33]

I have a water butt attached to the conservatory and one ready to attach to the chicken run.

 

When I first turn the hot tap on I save the cold water that comes out for plants, chickens, Jasdog, the kettle and cooking.

[Christian]

We have 2 water butts from different parts of the house. I plan to set up more on the garage, outbuilding, shed and logstore eventually. Should end up with 7-8 butts.

 

Guttering is so expensive though, its all the brackets and bits that add up!

[Willow]

Guttering is so expensive though, its all the brackets and bits that add up!

We have 2 water butts from different parts of the house. I plan to set up more on the garage, outbuilding, shed and logstore eventually. Should end up with 7-8 butts.

 

I know - we put up a new shed recently (7'x7') and put guttering on - we nearly put it all back when all the bits were rung up on the till ! However we put a really large water butt on the shed and it's amazing how quickly it fills up.

 

I've spent some time the last few days looking into grey water recycling as well as rainwater harvesting and came to the conclusion reusing the grey water from baths etc is too difficult with the need for filtering (or chlorine). So that brings me back to just rainwater harvesting. The house is difficult - the original house has 2 pitched roofs at right angles due to the shape of the house (slightly 'L' shaped). Then it had 3 different extensions put on the back plus a conservatory before we bought it. There is a pitched roof on one extension (the middle one), 1 storey flat roof on one side and flat roof 2 storey on the other side. So to capture rain off all of those will involve piping water from all over the place ! And we only have a path down each side of the house so gettign a large tank in will be interesting unless I put it out the front sicne the drive needs removing and replacing anyway... except most of the different downpipes are at the back of the house

 

I'd like to do as much of this diy to keep costs down but wodnering if we need soemone to design the layout.

 

I was hoping some omletters had experience of rainharvesting to share as I puzzle this out.

[dancing cloud]

I have six water butts in total - 4 that are just storage (you get a good workout hauling water down the garden), 1 collecting from the downpipe and the other linked to the collecting one.

 

I live in a bungalow, so there's a lot of roof to collect from, and have a water meter, so have probably saved the cost of the butts by never using mains water on the garden

[Mutrix Farmers]

OH has diverted the outflow from our bathroom into a water butt so all bath and shower water is used to water the garden. I sometimes put the washing up water in a watering can to water my patio pots but only if it's not greasy.

 

I also have 2 4-pint milk cartons by the kitchen sink that I run the hot tap into rather than waste the initial cold water flow. This is used to water house plants, fill up the birdbath or the girls' glug, make pellet porridge, rinse hands after washing up.