In article , Andrew Gabriel
wrote:

In article ,
"David W.E. Roberts" writes:
Hi,

cross posted to gardening and DIY as probably relevant to both :-)

My plans to power wash the flags at the back of my Berkshire property have
been thwarted by the hosepipe ban.

As far as I can tell, power washers don't use that much water.

So is it feasible to put a pump in a rain water butt to feed water to the
power washer?

Has anyone tried this?

Yes -- I connect a pressure washer up to my water butt with
a long hose. The only feed pressure is the height of water
in the butt. Actually, my cheap pressure washer has only
ever been used from the water butt. I did wonder if sand
might get into it and wreck the pump, but it's lasted
about 5 years now with no problems. In practice, the sand
tends to have sunk to the dead area in the bottom of the
butt, and doesn't come out of the tap which is a few inches
above that.

I was washing my car this way the first weekend of the hose
pipe ban, and got lots of dirty looks from passers by, who
could only see the hose and pressure washer. I kind of felt
guilty, even though I was doing nothing wrong.

You have highlighted the main reason why prosecutions under this
legislation won't happen. It's almost impossible to prove that someone
watering his plants with a hose was connected to the mains rather than
a reservoir.

Nothing new there -- there have been no prosecutions under the hosepipe
ban legislation for 40 years. The legislation is bad and the water
companies just make a lot of noise about £1000 fines in the hope that
the publicity will deter people.