Nothing to do with bikes, maybe the washing of them. Today I was in conversation with Anglian Water, our water and sewage provider/disposer. If you are on a metered supply and have an outside tap which you use for watering the garden, washing your vehicles etc you can buy a sub meter for about £30 to fit to the outside tap. This sub meter will record the quantity of water that you do not return to your supplying company via the foul water drainage system and your sewage charge should be adjusted accordingly. In our area the sewage component of our total bill is more than the water component. I suspect it will be similar for other areas. Apologies for posting such non bike item but why pay for something that you don’t have to?
So where does the water go that you wash your car/bike with? I'm guessing you'll have to prove that NONE of it goes down their drains. Yorkshire water have a scheme which gives a rebate if any run off from the house or other roofs on your property does not go to drains. We have 4 water butts so I contacted them but as one roof fall pipe goes to drain we aren't eligible. Unfortunately it's in a place where it HAS to go to drain so we're stuffed.
I think you will find that the storm water drainage system either flows directly to the local water source i.e. river or, if you are on a combined system, they have no way of checking your contribution to it as they they meter the influx of water to your property but not the sewage outfall from it.
Yorkshire Water have a "Surface Water Charge" which I think is the one you get rebated if you qualify. All of our run off, with the exception of that caught by the butts, goes down the foul water drain with everything else. Ironically, this was a requirement for the condensation drain of the new gas boiler when the old one packed up as the regs forbid it going to a land drain or soak away. Sounds a right load of red tape b*llocks to me.
I always thought only reducing your charge by 5%, presumably for evaporation or whatever, was a con. Paying a 95% charge for waste water based on your meter, especially for gardening or cleaning use where natural run off occurs, is just simply a money maker.
Totally agree with you closing statement but what you said earlier would indicate that your on a combined foul and surface water drainage system. So what happens when your water butts are full? Are they discharged on the garden or do they “leak” a lot.
3 of the 4 just run off into the garden but the largest one actually overflows back down the fall pipe to the drains! That wasn't a problem though, it was the one remaining fall pipe going straight to waste that killed our rebate entitlement. On the plus side the water butt storage has drastically cut down our water usage in Summer as we have bedding plants, ornamental tubs, hanging baskets and a greenhouse to keep watered. We can go 3 weeks of drought before they run dry.
I might add that we also have a water butt which collects water off the shed roof. The shed is where the Pigeons and Magpies sit and sh*t so the runoff forms a rich, organic, broth in the butt. The water comes out looking like Pale Ale and the smell takes your head off but the plants love it!
