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Water problem
FlowerNewbie
Posts: 153
hoping someone had a bit of advice or solution. I live in an upstairs house, (four in a block) with it being very sunny and not raining past few weeks I'm discovering watering is becoming very difficult. I have buckets outside for the rain but that's gone very quickly, so having to take bottles of water up and downstairs is getting difficult. A water butt isn't an option as the drainage pipe is right beside my neighbours door and would probably block our path to the garden. Had anyone ever had this problem and found a solution or will I have to stick it out with my many bottles of water and pray for rain at night ????
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Posts
Hi
Do you not have a mains water tap on the same level as your plants?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
A water butt doesn't have to be next to the downpipe. All you need to do is run a hose from the diverter to wherever you put the water butt, water always finds its level. The important thing is to get the level right so that the diverter operates correctly when the butt is full. However you may need to get permission from the leaseholder or other owners first.
I feel your pain FN. I put 3 250L water butts on the back of my 10 x 8 g/house (with guttering on both sides) last autumn.
Around 7 months later the level of water in the 1st butt still hasn't reached the tap! So I'm having to fill from the outside tap at the house and walk 150ft down the garden with watering cans, over and over and over again!!
I can't remember such a lack of rain over the past 12 months, ever.
I hope you find a solution
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
The only things I know about the flats water is the mains tap to turn it off etc is connected with the whole blocks supply, and is at the front, under stones (so the neighbour explained) if that's what you mean Dove, there's a tap at the side but that's the neighbours and I don't want to be cheeky and ask to use it. Steephill, the only place available to put it would be the side garden which means on our grass but the pipe would run scross the path unfortunately, making it hard to get bins around and perhaps tripping over it haha. Having a great time with this garden
pete8, I know haha I never thought I would want it to rain so much
haha. Thanks 
Right ... I think I'm getting the picture. It sounds similar to the problem Wonky Womble has spoken of on another thread. She's bought a connector that attaches a hosepipe to her kitchen tap and trails the hose out of her window and down to her garden. She just ha to be careful to keep the pressure down so it doesn't squirt indoors!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I have a connector for my kitchen tap and just put the hose out the window.....I layed new turf about 3 weeks ago and no rain has fell so this has been a life saver......it has never leaked from the tap either x
Pete8, you should check that your diverters are on correctly. There's definitely been enough rain since autumn to fill all 3 butts (assuming you are in the UK.)
Speak to your neighbours. I'm sure they won't mind if you use their tap occasionally, maybe fill up a large water butt then use that, to minimise the number of times you have to pester them!
Oh just googled it I'll defo get that then. I've asked to use it before to use a pressure washer for slabs, but felt bad about it and offered to do hers too haha then got the partner to do it all. He was not happy
? Thanks for all your help 