# Best Place to source water butts?



## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Evening guys, looking a t sourcing some water butts for both watering the garden and Pressure washing the car.

Where are the cheapest places you have found?


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

Argos seems the cheapest, got mine a couple weeks ago. but they seem out of stock at the moment every time I look as I want another.


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

Also depends what sort of size your looking for, if you want to go big then look on ebay for 1000L IBC tanks, you can pick them up for as little as £15 each if your prepared to travel.


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Johnboy20011 said:


> Also depends what sort of size your looking for, if you want to go big then look on ebay for 1000L IBC tanks, you can pick them up for as little as £15 each if your prepared to travel.


Thats a good idea, any idea what the physical dimensions of an IBC is?


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## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

If you're looking for a slimline one this is about the cheapest I've found

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0313386


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

mattsbmw said:


> Thats a good idea, any idea what the physical dimensions of an IBC is?


looking on the net a 1000L tanks is about 
Height 1,160mm
Width 1,000mm
Depth 1,200mm

This is my set up at the moment, it filled all these containers up in a day last week and only using one side of the roof as the other side is off a different downpipe. At the moment im using a combo of green brillo pads and some old tights to filter the grit out, and the water believe it or not is completely clear to the eye.










And this is the flow rate of the water butt filling when it was raining hard. I had a job keeping up emptying it as fast as it was filling. see how clean the water is


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## cobra (Feb 18, 2012)

S63 said:


> If you're looking for a slimline one this is about the cheapest I've found
> 
> http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0313386


I looked at these (made by sankey) - take a look at the b and q reviews they have a habit of cracking near the tap it would appear


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## cobra (Feb 18, 2012)

Johnboy20011 said:


> looking on the net a 1000L tanks is about
> Height 1,160mm
> Width 1,000mm
> Depth 1,200mm
> ...


Any pictures of the filter - i've only really space for one and need to set something up to try and clean it a bit?


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## DMH-01 (Mar 29, 2011)

B&Q/The Range/Wilkinsons are quite cheap. Think B&Q have got an offer on them atm as well.


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## Shinyvec (Feb 12, 2010)

I can get the big blue barrels with a locking lid and roughly 210/220L for £12 but you need to collect form the Wirral. I got 2 on friday night with 10x 30L plastic cans too for £15. All this is for my waterbutt system and now i have the abouve and 150L waterbutt and 4x25L cans all for storing clean waterbutt water


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## aj84 (Feb 1, 2012)

I got this on Saturday
http://www.tesco.com/direct/100l-sp...water butt_p&gclid=CN-T_PyBy68CFZARfAodUAuSYQ

Got it delivered to local tesco next day and picked it up
So far, it's collected a fair bit and that's by just leaving the lid open :lol: Not had a chance to hack the pipes yet


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

cobra said:


> Any pictures of the filter - i've only really space for one and need to set something up to try and clean it a bit?


Heres my Heath Robinson jobbie

pic of the top of the guttering down pipe with brillo pad wedged under the ends of the guttering in an inverted U shape.









Image of the tights inserted in to the upper 45deg section. The tights are about 8" long with a hand full of driveway gravel in the bottom to keep them stretched in the pipe.


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## Squadrone Rosso (Aug 11, 2009)

Just fitted this. Had to order it as tough to get hold of now, despite living in the rain soaked Midlands


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## cobra (Feb 18, 2012)

Squadrone Rosso said:


> Just fitted this. Had to order it as tough to get hold of now, despite living in the rain soaked Midlands
> 
> View attachment 23424


As your diverter is above the top of your waterbutt its going to overflow and soak your wall


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## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

cobra said:


> As your diverter is above the top of your waterbutt its going to overflow and soak your wall


I can testify to that, the last one I installed was only a couple of inches out but didn't divert the water once full. I know we men don't usually read the instructions but with these it's crucial to get it spot on.


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## Derbyshire-stig (Dec 22, 2010)

Matt there is a place in Ilkeston selling the IBC tanks cheap, Ive looked at one, I have a trailer if you need one.


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Derbyshire-stig said:


> Matt there is a place in Ilkeston selling the IBC tanks cheap, Ive looked at one, I have a trailer if you need one.


Thats great to know, i have access to a trailer so that wont be a problem but i do need to pm you about some work i got for you


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Thanks for the replies guys, think i am going to get 1 maybe 2 IBC's behind a garage and then a couple of smaller barrels to filter out the muck and grit.,


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## Squadrone Rosso (Aug 11, 2009)

cobra said:


> As your diverter is above the top of your waterbutt its going to overflow and soak your wall


It was fitted in a rush & has been half filled in under 24 hours:doublesho

So, the diverter needs needs to sit lower than the water butt? How will the water flow up the tube to fill it then?


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

Squadrone Rosso said:


> It was fitted in a rush & has been half filled in under 24 hours:doublesho
> 
> So, the diverter needs needs to sit lower than the water butt? How will the water flow up the tube to fill it then?


The diverter outlet spout needs to sit level with the inlet spout on the water butt. This needs to be fairly accurate as fitting it too high will overflow the water butt and too low will not allow the diverter to work and it wont fill the butt.


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## Shinyvec (Feb 12, 2010)

About 4 inches from the top of the waterbutt I find works just right and I get water about 1 inch above the inlet and then the water just goes down the drain. You can also fit a overflow to stop overflowing and run that pipe either into another waterbutt or down to a grid or something


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Thanks for the help so far guys, i think i have decided that i will go down the route of IBC's as i have the space for at least two of them probably more which will be plenty for cleaning the car and watering the garden.

My next question is using smaller butts as filters to get rid of the debris etc, would i be ok linking up say 3 25 litre butts at the correct height, then into the IBC's, this would mean then as the smaller 25 litres get full of dirt they can be emptied easier.

anything wrong with this idea?


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## Squadrone Rosso (Aug 11, 2009)

Johnboy20011 said:


> The diverter outlet spout needs to sit level with the inlet spout on the water butt. This needs to be fairly accurate as fitting it too high will overflow the water butt and too low will not allow the diverter to work and it wont fill the butt.


Thanks. So the entry going into the lid isn't a good idea?


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## cobra (Feb 18, 2012)

Squadrone Rosso said:


> Thanks. So the entry going into the lid isn't a good idea?


no not really, as its not watertight - it will fill the waterbutt and spill over rather than returning down the downpipe.

in your picture I would use the white guttering pipe to fill your waterbutt, I assume its a smaller roof area but it will still fill!

the other option is to raise the height of the waterbutt, but you can't raise it as high as the inlet!

actually thinking about it - you could haveoverflow pipe at just 3 or so inches below the top of the waterbutt to act as an overflow and route it into the white downpipe - then it would fill fromk the larger roof area and not overflow.


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## Shinyvec (Feb 12, 2010)

I mentioned above how to set a fill pipe
About 4 inches from the top of the waterbutt I find works just right and I get water about 1 inch above the inlet and then the water just goes down the drain. You can also fit a overflow to stop overflowing and run that pipe either into another waterbutt or down to a grid or something


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## Squadrone Rosso (Aug 11, 2009)

Thanks for the tips

Read the instructions and did the job properly yesterday.

Also put several layers of material from my wife's tights over the outlet & inlet diverter tubes, secured by the hose

Hopefully that will act as a pretty efficient filter.

Cheers,

Simon


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

Squadrone Rosso said:


> Thanks for the tips
> 
> Read the instructions and did the job properly yesterday.
> 
> ...


This should work, but take care as the surface area of this filter if it is in the filler tube is relatively small and will soon clog up and restrict flow. This wont cause any overflows but with a short heavy shower a lot of water may be wasted as it cant flow through the tube fast enough. In your case it might be better to have it inside the butt attached to the inlet spout some how. At least this way you can have a much bigger surface area to assist the flow rate.


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## DemonIan (Oct 30, 2011)

Squadrone Rosso said:


> Thanks for the tips
> 
> Read the instructions and did the job properly yesterday.
> 
> ...


Great idea with the tights. 
Ours was £30 on amazon, 120l free delivery if anyone's still looking...


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## Johnboy20011 (Mar 7, 2011)

Bit of an update on my set up. I was having problems with the pressure washer surging in pulses. What i have done is changed a "stop" hoselock connector for a standard one. I have also drilled out the centre of the hoselock spouts on all my connectors to 10mm, this has now stopped the surging and also improved the flow rate no end. If you look inside your hoselock connectors is surprising how actually restricting thy are, especially the stop ones with the valve biuilt in.
With most of us having to use water buts and gravity feed then increasing the flow as much as possible really helps how much you can get out of the pressure washer.


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