Attaching a hose to a water butt

Nellbell

Oh no 🫣 yet another old post. Oh well maybe this will still come in useful for someone

Don't worry, Nellbell. I think it's very pertinent in the current situation of drought and hosepipe bans.

If this is to be the future brought about by climate change perhaps more people will be thinking of setting up water butts to save rainwater to use for watering their gardens.

Oh no 🫣 yet another old post. Oh well maybe this will still come in useful for someone

And B & Q.
Sorry can't attach the links but if you Google Bosch garden water pump you should find a selection. Happy hosing!

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202507/medium-1o6n6i-img20250718150012.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202507/medium-alih6z-img20250718150006.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202507/medium-74vbos-img20250718150000.jpg

I use this set up very successfully which allows me to hosepipe from the water butts. It's a battery operated water pump which goes into the water butts or wherever you are collecting rainwater. The other part (with on/off switches) hooks onto the side of the water butt and the long tube has a hose connector. Find it invaluable and is easily moved to waterbutts in other parts of the garden and used on the allotment. Similar set ups are on Amazon.

Thank you Farmor15 for your comment.
It is worth a try what you have suggested I just need to find an attachment now.

It does flow for a long distance, even through a long length of hose. We have a complicated system of linked hoses from a few butts, running nearly 50 metres to a polytunnel and the water flows right down to it. The end is left in one place for a while to soak the ground, and then moved. If a spray of water is needed for some reason, the top end of the hose can be moved from butt to outside tap - same connector.

Thinking about it and the fact I have one of those hoses that stretch when the water goes thru it probably wouldn't work.
I was trying to help myself without having to fill buckets etc and walking with the heavy water.
Thanks everyone for your help with this.

I guess it would workto a certain extent as once the tap is on the water comes out without any pressure or pump. Not sure whether it would keep flowing along a length of hose though?? Will investigate tomorrow.

As others have said there won’t be enough pressure to water your garden the water would only run out slowly but no spray.

Oh I never thought about water pressure.
What I wanted was to water the garden via my hose which would be attached to the water butt tap.

The water butts we have have a tap that fits the standard Hoselock (and the cheaper generic ones) connector - the type with a kind of spring ring you pull down to attach. The hose goes on the bottom end and you can run it anywhere in the garden we want. The flow wouldn't be strong enough to power a sprinkler but if left it flows slowly and can be used to water pots etc without having to carry a watering can.

We have a porous hose connected to ours. We have a narrow bed all around the house that is very dry so the water just drips out continuously. We bought the connector at the garden centre.

I suppose it all depends on what you want to use the water for.

A dribble or a spray...

Or even just filling a watering can a bit nearer to the plants...

We don’t have a pump for our Hozelock automatic water system. The tap is higher, but the system just dribbles water into the pots and beds.The water butt is about 40cms higher than the pond and once again water just dribbles into the pond.

Most water butts come with a tap. You can buy a hose with a thumb screw to secure it to the tap. We have 6 large water butts and each has a hose attached this was. Look on Amazon

I don't know how you could achieve enough pressure to carry the water along the hose to its destination unless you have a pump.

I have a Hoselock (not advertising) submersible pump that I bought about 10 years ago from B & Q. It's been very useful, I can run a sprinkler from it, though it doesn't have such good pressure as a mains water tap.

Submersible pumps can be bought for less than £100. Then you need enough hose to reach your beds.

We have one where the overflow from the butt flows into our pond. DH attached the hose end to the butt tap with a Jubilee clip. Nothing complicated. I’d go and take a photo, but it’s dark.