Since retiring I’ve spend a lot more time enjoying a hobby that has been a bit of a passion for years, gardening. During my youth, I always wondered why the so called expert gardeners were gnarly old fella’s always willing to lean on a spade and share their wisdom and knowledge with anyone prepared to listen! Well now I’m old and the spade is comfortable so ‘listen’ to some words of wisdom while you have a cup of whatever you fancy.
Combining DIY and gardening doesn’t really take much to do, both ‘arts’ involve skills that can bring about a huge amount of satisfaction to the participants. Fixing your own broken down pipe is almost as satisfying as munching on the first homegrown tomato of the season. But now I’m rambling, well you do tend to do that while leaning on your spade on a warm day. A few weeks ago I decided that the cost of water was getting to the stage of being a bit beyond a joke (the latest bill had arrived) and because I’m starting to grow a lot of veggies and stuff in containers and raising my own plants from seed, watering is really important. Also after the recent earthquakes, I have recognised the need to be a bit more self sufficient with my water supply. The answer, of course, is to get a tank and start saving the free stuff that falls from the sky. Well, this was where the problems started because I only a have a small section I wanted a small tank preferably made of plastic so that it would be light enough for me to fit myself.
Well, a quick search on the internet really got me worried, most of the sites wanted to sell tanks that would take the capacity of the local dam! 750 litres up to 30000 seemed to be the average! It wasn’t until I found the Rainline Water Solutions Site that I discovered that ‘somebody’ was catering to MY needs. Rainline seems to specialise in tanks, or should I say more correctly, Butts, for home use with sizes ranging from 200 litres to 510 litres. They are made of plastic and are easy to move ( when empty of course) and come in a flowerpot or square shapes, plus they have a range of connectors to fit to your downpipes as well as gizmos that stop leaves and debris getting into your water. Basically, these people are a one stop shop for rainwater collection systems for your home, good people to deal with and offer great advice. As for fitting the tank to your down pipes, nothing could be easier for the home handy person.
Read more from Chris Bennett.
MacThistle - 13 years ago
Will most definitly look into this site – thanks for the info and link. Living on the west coast we certainly do get our fair share and then some of rain during winter months. Some of our run off (mainly from garage and outbuildings) is largely wasted as it has now where to go other than the ground.
Cheers