I've never had one crack from freezing but they probably have expansion room like you say. These days I fix a hose to the tap and set the tap to trickle so the butts fill up in heavy rain and then empty slowly between showers. They have an overflow to the drain as well for very heavy rain but at least they're doing something for flood prevention by slowing some of the flow to the river.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Yeah we're only 750 feet above sea level, on the edge of the Peak District, so not in the harshest of locations. But the butts are in the shadow of the house all winter, ie. no sun at all. They both went around the bottom rim.
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
To prevent your water butt from freezing all you need to do is fill a plastic bottle with water and add a cup of salt and put the lid on. Place the bottle into your water butt. The salt will stop the water in the bottle from freezing and the bottle floating in the water will stop that from freezing.
Hopefully the reservoirs will be full to overflowing too by the end of next Spring.
I certainly hope so! But I have 4 water butts anyway. Watching plants suffer was quite a downer this summer. Either way, my plants will get nice rainwater instead of mains water.
This year was the motivation i needed to get my WB's sorted and i now can't believe how i lived without them!
I'm hoping for the 'right kind' of rain this winter too. Plenty falling out of the sky at the minute yet none of the natural springs near me are flowing again after the dry summer!
Posts
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
I'm hoping for the 'right kind' of rain this winter too. Plenty falling out of the sky at the minute yet none of the natural springs near me are flowing again after the dry summer!