Water at the Allotment

[BockingBill]

Our allotment in Bocking is dry even in wet years as it is on a slope and open to drying winds and sun for most of the day. We are thinking of installing water but we are worried about the ongoing cost per plot. From rough calculations it appears that we would be looking at approximately £50 pa per plot.

Is this widely out?

We have come to this figure by assuming that on average we would be using 50 litres a day for say 90 days per plot. Are these sensible assumptions?

Would the water board charge at the same rate as per the domestic rate?

[Chrispy]

I think £50 per plot is too high.
I pay £13/year for my 10 rod plot.

4500 litres (50lx90days) will cost about £5, add the standing charge devided by the number of plots.

All water companies are different, which one are you with? And how many plots on the site?

[Unwashed]

I'm with Chrispy.  in Newbury our six sites average out use around £1/pole, though there is some variation between sites, and hosepipe use is unrestricted.  Two sites used it at more like £2/pole but I suspect there were leaks to account for much of that.

[pigeonseed]

I can't remember what our water rates are, but it could be subsidised by the council anyway. (sorry not helpful)

Just a thought - if you're going to the trouble of getting together, raising money for works and paying extra for water, would you be able to add any water collecting structures with water butts for communal use?

I'm sure that with no water on tap, you've all been finding ways of harvesting rainwater already. Just wondering whether as a collective you could have a better system, and could there possibly be any grants or other finding available for 'green' solutions like that? Might offset the cost.

We enquired about extending the mains water on our site, and the council said another local site recently spent £2000 having the pipe extended a few meters. 

[chriscross1966]

An IBC costs around 15-20 quid secondhand and if a bunch of you are buying them you might find one of the providers on ebay willing to deliver 20 or 30 for a sensible price....... that's a thousand litre water butt.... put two of them on every shed and that's 2000 litres of water a year even if it onlyu fills up in the winter and it never rains in summer..... I was planning on doing that to my Oxford plot until I moved.... I have the advantage that I'd probalby put one on the plot and keep one at home, can always put it in the van, fill it up and then pump across.....

chrisc

[pigeonseed]

That sounds like a good idea. Of course if people don't have sheds, they'd have to construct some kind of rain catcher thing. But could certainly be worth it, given the price of mains water connections.

[Columbus]

Hi all, 
We have enough taps, and we are free to use hoses, but not sprinklers and water usage is free, but everyone still has water butts. I usually use mine because its less far too walk carrying a can. I don`t do much watering until July, when I can be there more often.
I have three barrels collecting water from my shed that are connected by hoses so one barrel will empty into the next if it is full. The end  barrel has a hose connecting into the potting shed where I grow tomatoes. So my toms get watered by gravity feed.
Similarly I collect water from my greenhouse which feeds back into it via a barrel and hose arrangement.
We have had problems with one of the standpipes that won`t shut off properly and was making a swamp. We reported it to the council but they are useless.
So I put a half barrel on a pallet under it and made an overflow that waters into my pumpkin patch. I`d like to make an egyption style irrigation system from the river but that would be working uphill,
Col