Rain harvesting - waterbutt alternatives & how to connect

You can link water containers at the bottom so they all fill at the same rat, they all need to be at the same level. Dustbins only hold 80ltrs so it might be better to invest in more water butts. Don't know about connecting them to drip irrigation though. I am sure someone will be along shortly who knows about such things.

Plastic dustbins are great for storing water... Raise them up so the top of the bin is the same level as the top of the water butt then drill holes and fit tank connectors and a pipe in between. When the butt fills to the level of the first pipe then excess water will flow to the first bin and then to the second... Etc...

As to the drip system, it depends which system and what minimum head of water it needs. Find the figure and then raise all the butts and bins so the bottom of them is at least as high as the head needed and tap off the water from the bottom of the butt.

The pipes need to be fitted at the bottom of the butt and bins if you want to tap water off each automatically.


I do it the other way round and put the pipes at the top so the butt fills completely and then the first bin fills and then the second... Etc... but this will only allow a drip system to use one vessel. The others can be used to fill watering cans as normal.

I use a drip soaking hose pipe and feed it off a separate tank that is sat on top of the water butt to get the required head of water. I then fill this tank manually by dipping a bucket into a bin to transfer water. My system is on a timer so delivers the water over a few days. But it is not necessarily what you want.

You could contact your council and find out what they do with their broken wheelie bins. Obviously you want ones with their bodies intact, but their lids can be damaged and still work as buts. Waltham Forest council gave a heap of them to allotments a few years ago and almost every plot had them as buts, browns stores, or (in my case) as giant bokashi bins.


My butts at the moment have a 20mm pipe at the top as an overflow plus another overflow into a dust bin (the three are on top of a pile of 4 pallets, with the butts also standing on their propper stands). The dust bin overflows into another dust bin standing on some props which then overflows into the third and final dust bin on the ground. All overflows are with 20mm ID pipe from Wilko.


The taps on the buts have dual adapters on them, with one of each connected together so I can equalise the levels and also use both butts without having to reconnect the hose.


Blue barrels are also used a lot as water buts as they can hold 210 liters and are solid enough to drill overflow and tap holes into. These can be used to deliver all sorts of things so you need to check out what they have been used for ( saw one advertised as "great for rain butt on the allotment - previously contained herbicide")


Teakdesk - what make and model of timer do you use as most of the ones I've seen require mains pressure and wouldn't even dribble on a gravity feed?

Look on Gubtree and Freecycle for people selling or giving away cold water tanks - lots of older systems are being replaced with combi-boilers that don't use tanks.

ibc is the way to go (1000 litres plus) .... you can buy 2nd hand ones on ebay for approx £30 .... just make sure that the ingredients were food grade (such as molasses etc) ....

there are couriers advertising on gumtree and ebay that do deliveries for cheap .... at the end of the day, it looks neater, and holds lots ....

In my roof, I get 10 litres of water per every 1mm of rain ... so a few good days of rain and a standard waterbut overflows