Topic: Water butt - how long does it take to fill?

[Mme Muck]

If I fit a water butt by my shed (7x5) - I'm wondering roughly how many days of rain will it take to fill?  Mr Muck thinks I'm getting too excited about my butt and I will end up having to fill it from the tap (which I wouldn't want to do as it kind of defeats the object) ???. 

[caroline7758]

Have you got any guttering on your shed? It will fill a lot quicker if it is fed from the run-off from the roof into the gutter than if you just collect the rain that falls directly into it.

[Mme Muck]

Yes, the intention is to fit guttering on the shed (none as yet).

[Robert_Brenchley]

Depends how often it rains, how much we get at a time, and how big your roof is. It doesn't take that long, barring a drought.

[Larkshall]

Bit of a mathematical problem this.

Firstly, a 7x5ft shed, 7x5=35sq ft (the measurement is usually the overall measurement of the roof)

Then take the square footage of your water butt and divide the 35sq ft by that and that will give you the number of inches for 1in of rainfall. Divide the height of your butt by that and you have the number of inches of rainfall required to fill the butt (approx.).

Or how long is a piece of string?

[Mme Muck]

errm...thanks for the maths... ;) well I think I'll just get some kind of butt and wait for it to fill...

[Unwashed]

What Larkshall said.  Or another way, every 1mm of rain fills the butt with 3.1 litres of rain, so for example a 200 litre water butt would be filled with 200/3.1 = 64mm of rain, which is around the monthly average.

[chriscross1966]

OK, easier maths.... standard big plastic water butt is 200 litres or thereabouts, a litre is a cubic decimetre. A 7x5 shed translates into 21.5 decimetres by 15 decimetres, a surface area of around 320 square decimetres.... therefore you need 200/320 decimetres of rain to fill it. Conveniently that's 5/8 and as a decimetre is near as dammit 4 inches you will see that it requires 2.5 inches of rain to fill the butt, assuming perfect guttering and no evaporation losses etc. If you use a 1000 litre IBC as your water butt then you would need 12.5 inches of rain to fill it.....

chrisc

[Chrispy]

1 Inch of rain means approx 83 l of water, lets say 90l to include what falls straight into the butt.
Average rainfall in Chester for a summer month is about 1.8 inches, or 162l

Lets say you have a standard 210l butt, so that is 1.3 months to fill.

Or anotherway of looking at it, full all winter when you don't want it, and empty all summer when you do want it.

[bazzysbarn]

If it rains a lot not long :D

[kt.]

It will be full when it is full ;D ;D ;D

It will also depend how much water you are using as it is filling, therefore preventing it from filling. 8) 8)

[landimad]

If I fit a water butt by my shed (7x5) - I'm wondering roughly how many days of rain will it take to fill?  Mr Muck thinks I'm getting too excited about my butt and I will end up having to fill it from the tap (which I wouldn't want to do as it kind of defeats the object) ???. 

I do not think colonic irrigation has anything to do with it tell him ;D ;D ;D

[caroline7758]

My slimline Tesco butt has taken about 6 weks to fill, but most of that has been in the last 2 days! ;D

[tricia]

I have three in-a-line water butts fed from the guttering of my 7' x 5' pent-roofed shed. It rained most of the day yesterday - 1/2" according to my rainfall measuring thingy. This morning the first butt was full (previously emptied to top up the pond) and the second one is 3/4 full. They each hold about 220 litres. I have two more fed from the house roof which were both empty and are now full and one more which is fed from the porch roof which is now almost full. What a relief! - now I'll be able to keep my celeriac nice and wet for a while  :).

Tricia

[admjh1]

A lot longer than it takes to empty  8) ::) ::)

[Jeannine]

My ,there aren't 'alf some clever clogs on 'ere... three men and a butt!! XX Jeannine