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“Live” Water Butt Levels

Click the orange map marker locations to find out more.

After the driest July on record, and below average rainfall in 10 of the last 12 months, water levels in the UK’s rivers and reservoirs are much lower than usual. And, with nearly 3 million litres of water lost each year through leakages, the UK is now being forced to safeguard its water supply with hosepipe bans being introduced throughout the country.

This means people are no longer able to water their garden or allotment with a hosepipe or sprinkler, and they need to be very mindful about how much water they use, even when using a watering can. 

As suppliers of water butts & rainwater harvesting systems, you’d be right to assume that we’ve been particularly busy over the last few weeks with people ordering rainwater tanks like never before, because of the heatwave and the impending hosepipe bans. 

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Click here to take part in our Live Water Butt Experiment

The Latest Happenings

5th August

Southern Water announces hosepipe ban.

12th August

South East Water announces temporary hosepipe bans in Sussex and Kent.

12th August

Drought declared in 8 areas of the UK by the Environment Agency.

19th August

Welsh Water announce a hosepipe ban for west Wales. The first ban of such in Wales for more than 30 years.

23rd August

South West Water introduces a hosepipe ban.

24th August

Thames Water introduces a hosepipe ban.

26th August

Yorkshire Water brings in a hosepipe ban for the whole of Yorkshire.

Collecting rainwater to use instead of mains water, for things like watering your flowers, garden lawn or washing your car, is of course a smart thing to do. This is true during both wet and dry summers. The sad truth is though, that many of our recent new customers have been buying water butts ahead of the hosepipe bans so that they can fill them up with mains water before the ban, and then use the water inside them once the ban is in place. Unfortunately trying to “beat the system”.

Of course, not only is this not the right thing to do (because it means we’re not actually saving any mains water!), it’s also simply not necessary.
You may well be thinking; “Sure, that’s great and all, but we actually haven’t had that much rain recently, so my water butt will just stay empty!”.
Yes, whilst we’ve not had much rainfall in the UK in recent weeks, it still has rained a bit in most areas of the country, and if you have a water butt or rainwater tank positioned to collect the rainfall from your roof, then you will soon have enough water to reuse in your garden.

To demonstrate our point, we have setup this page to show you the “live” water levels in water butts throughout the UK, to give you an indication as to how much rainwater you can capture to reuse in your garden.

On Thursday 11th August, after several weeks of no rain where we’re based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, we installed 1 water butt in Solihull & another 1 in Northampton, to carry out a test.

We did not fill them up with mains water(!) but of course left them empty, ready for the next rainfall event.
And what had happened by Tuesday 16th August, just 5 days later?… You guessed it, we’d collected half a water butt full of water – around 150 litres in each one.
And we’re pretty confident that the same will be true in most areas of the UK.
Yes, we’re having a dry summer, and yes, we’ve had below average rainfall in 10 of the last 12 months, but we’re still in the UK & that often means it rains and we don’t even notice it – we’re so used to it!

What we’re not doing enough is collecting it and putting it to good use, instead of using mains water.

Rainwater is full of nutrients and minerals that your garden needs in order to thrive, and collecting rainwater to use in your garden will certainly help during the hot weather that we are currently having. Especially if you have a hosepipe ban in place where you live.
So, if you want an indication as to the rainwater levels that you could have been collecting close to your home, simply click on the icon that’s most local to you and see how much rainwater other people have been collecting which you could also be benefiting from.
We’re also looking to fill up this map with more and more locations to show live water level feeds throughout the country, so if you’re willing to help us when you fit a water butt to your home (or with your existing water butt if you already have one), please let us know by clicking here.

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