Water Butts and Dipping Tanks - Catch, Store, and Use It...

One of the simplest and most effective ways to manage rainwater in your garden is by using a water butt or a dipping tank to collect and store rainwater from your roof. These solutions are ideal for reducing water bills, conserving resources, and helping to reduce flood risk.
Let’s go through the basics of how to use downpipes to fill a water butt or an open dipping trough, along with some tips for maximizing the benefits of your system:

1. Using a Downpipe to Fill a Water Butt or Dipping Tank
Once you’ve chosen the water butt or dipping tank that fits your garden space, look and works with your available downpipe options, the first step is to position so it can be connected to your downpipe.

Water butts often come with plastic stands to elevate them and their taps to a height you can get your watering can under. Even slim line butts will get very heavy when full so if you’re not on a level surface you need to ensure you wedge the stand so that it is very stable.

Dipping tanks or troughs are typically long and narrow. There is usually an outlet valve somewhere in it (usually supplied with a bung or stopper, should you ever need to empty the trough completely). My advice would be to position it very slightly sloping towards the end with the outlet hole when you're positioning it and, again this needs to be as stable as possible.

If you’re using a diverter to fill either of these features from a downpipe (which channels the rainwater into the storage container until it’s full and then diverts the water back on its original course down the down pipe) you’ll need to connect it.

These should come with instructions and, typically, this will involved sawing through the down pipe and removing a small section to replace with the diverter kit. A junior hacksaw is ideal for the job – hold the pipe steady and watch your fingers!

Once the tank fills to the inlet pipe level, the rain water is diverted back to the original down pipe so, with a finite amount of space it’s important to use the water in the butt regularly to ensure there’s space next time it rains.

For a dipping tank, the water flows directly into the tank or trough from a downpipe or diverter angled towards it with the same diversion back to the downpipe when it becomes full.

If you're not using a diverter inlet you will need to think about where water goes if the tank reaches capacity. Proximity to a drain will allow you to direct an overflow back towards it or, allow it to occasionally spill over into planting either directly, or across a patio into should not be problematic.

2. Filtering Leaves and Debris
A common issue when collecting rainwater is that debris, such as leaves and dirt, can block the diverter into the butt, reduce its effectiveness or create a leak or overflow from your guttering.

Diverters typically have a small gap or collar around where they attach to the downpipe where moss, dirt or debris from the roof can collect so, it’s important to check and clear these out every few months to prevent leaks and blockages.

It can be helpful to add a simple filter or mesh cover to the top of your water butt especially if it doesn’t have a lid or, if it’s an open dipping tank.

3. Emptying Before Heavy Rain to Maximise Benefits
To make the most of the rainfall, it’s a good idea to empty your water butt or dipping tank if you can before and in between rain events.

By doing this, you create space to capture and slow more water when the rain comes. This is especially important if you live in an area where downpours are frequent and emptying the containers before the next rain event ensures that you maximize the amount of water you can collect.
By doing this (even if you don’t get the maximum benefit of using the water when the garden is super dry) you’ll still be preventing and/or slowing the rate at which run off from your property enters the local drainage system.

4. Using More Than One Storage Solution
If you have the space, using more than one water butt or dipping tank is a great way to maximize the benefits of rainwater collection and multiple storage solutions give you extra capacity.

If you have the option of putting storage in different places, a water butt off the roof of the house and then a further one off the shed roof at the bottom of the garden, for example, this also helps you to distribute the water you’re using, more efficiently.

Again, the space you have available and the configuration of your garden and its requirements are going to be the main considerations, here.

5. Safety Considerations
Safety should be considered, especially if you have young children or pets:

• Secure the lid or cover: Ensure your water butt or dipping tank is properly sealed with a lid or cover to prevent accidental falls, especially, if the tank is large or deep and children and/or pets have access to it.
• A clean system is a safe system. Regularly check for algae, stagnant water, or debris inside your container, which can create an ideal breeding ground for insects like mosquitoes. A cover or mesh will help prevent this.

Bringing It All Together
Using water butts and/or dipping tanks are simple yet effective ways to manage rainwater sustainably. By collecting and storing rainwater from your roof, you can reduce run-off, save on water bills, and help protect the environment.

However, while they provide the benefits of catching and slowing run off and storing it for future use, in the next section we’ll look at another option that increases your planting space and gives you something lovely to look at as well.