[KirinChris]

I know that's a bit of a 'piece of string' question but we are looking at putting in some tanks to catch rainwater off various roofs.

I'm interested to know what size people use and to cover what purposes.

Our plan is to have one that will serve for a smallish patch of fruit and veg - about 5mx5m raised beds - and also as water source for a few ducks.
And probably another one in the stable yard, just for washing, cleaning etc.

[chrismahon]

You won't know until you have measured your tap water usage for those things. We have a wild flower patch of 20m2 that has taken 3000L so far. Add to that our veg plot, which even half the size it was, now took 9000L this year because it was so dry. You can buy a meter from Gardinier, about €40 I think we paid.


We have loads of rainwater we can collect. The problem is the cost of the storage vessels and they are far too small. We need a large pond, but even those here even without drawing any water off went dry. It's cheaper just to not grow stuff and buy what we want. You might be in the same situation?


We have two 1000L butts storing water from the roof. They were dry in a week and had to be filled with tap water.

[Kiran]

I use IBC's but they aren't ideal as they have clear sides so go a bit green in sunlight. Annoyingly the previous owner left a 2500 rain water harvesting tank but from the smell of it he had been storing fuel in it. So I doubt I'll ever be able to clean that out sufficiently

[Penninehillbilly]

Just a point to think about, esp if using for fowl, on another site questions were raised about detritus/ disease from bird droppings etc, you can put a filter on for bits washing down, but bird flu etc could be cause for concern?
It's just the other posts have made me think about the tanks we were setting up after this summer, very nearly running out of spring water (only source for house as well)

[Fleecewife]

We have 5 x 1000/1300 litre black ex orange juice barrels. 4 of them collect water from roofs while the 5th is filled from the others for the veg garden. Overflow from 2 of them keeps the fish and goose ponds topped up. We have 6 drinkers with ball cocks running from one of the big tanks for most of the sheep, including keeping the drinkers washed out. we decant into a 40 litre barrel for boot washing, poultry water etc. We use an electric pump to fill the veg barrel, but gravity for everything else.
When we bought the big black barrels they cost £100 each (of course they are now much more expensive). That was about 25 years ago. I think that works out at £20 per year for our entire water system (extra for blue pipe).  Last year we had an unusually dry summer for Scotland so we did have to ration water use slightly but we never ran out, unlike our well which we only use for the house, which did run dry.
The barrels being black the water doesn't go green and because they are not open to flying insects there is not a mozzie problem. You do have to fit your own tap and raise them up a bit to fit a bucket underneath.

[Anke]

You can "board up" IBC tanks with pallets quite well and also put a "roof" onto them (and then collect from that roof as well. I think Huw Richards (youtube channel) is using the pallet sides to grow some plants in as well. If you already have the IBC tanks on-site, I wouldn't waste them, especially if you do rely on non-mains water supply or are metered.

[Penninehillbilly]

If using IBCs you could slide black balewrap down between tank and cage.
When I open a bale, I cut the disc off top and bottom, then straight down one side, gives a nice long sheet of black plastic for such uses.

[juliem]

We use more rainwater to wash our cars than on the garden.Luckily when vehicles are really dirty in the winter butts are always full.
We have a borehole but still try to save using it because of wear and tear on the pump .Pumps are expensive

[Womble]

Just to learn from my experience - don't try to paint IBCs black. It doesn't work, and looks awful!