Putting washing machine water on the garden, rainwater showers and pimping up your watering can: Resourceful Brits share their latest hacks to beat the hospeipe bans
- Millions of people have been affected by hose pipe bans across the UK
- A drought is expected to be declared in parts of England and Wales later today
- The ban hasn’t deterred Brits from sharing creative solutions online
Brits are discovering creative ways to deal with hose pipe bans as more than 30 million people could soon be affected by them.
Parts of England and Wales are expected to be declared to be in drought today as the UK continues to endure one of the driest, hottest periods on record.
Yorkshire Water became the most recent firm to introduce a hose pipe ban today, affecting five million customers.
The drought hasn’t deterred Brits from enjoying their summer, with many sharing online how they’ve been coping with the hose pipe ban in their area.
One Twitter user posted a photo of himself jokingly getting around the ban by running his hose through a watering can with the caption ‘They’ll never know’.
More serious solutions to the ban have also been posted on social media, including a woman who shared a video of an outdoor shower which used rainwater from her roof to help keep cool as temperatures peak at around 37C.
Another enterprising gardener said they had been using leftover ‘grey water’ from their washing machine to water their plants, saying ‘waste not want not’.
The hack was also shared by Monty Don on the latest episode of Gardeners’ World.
He encouraged people to use ‘grey water’ for their plants (so long as they do not grow food), left over from ‘washing up dishes or yourself is perfectly good on floral plants’.
One woman on TikTok was seen to be breaking the ban by attaching her hosepipe directly to her bath tap
One cheeky Londoner decided to bring their paddling pool to St George’s Square in Pimlico, to use the council’s tap to fill it up
A video posted to TikTok also showed man making fun of the drought by driving a bucket of water to a reservoir before pouring it in to ‘beat the hose pipe ban’.
One woman shared a TikTok of her filling up a paddling pool by connecting a hose to her bath tap.
In the video the woman can be seen miming: ‘I am not allowed, I know I am not allowed.
‘I’ve done it now, it’s too bleeding late. What they going to do? What’s going to happen?
‘Are they going to shoot me? I doubt it, they’d have to catch me first. I’m like a whippet’.
A London man was also caught filling up a large blue paddling pool tap in St George’s Square, Pimlico using a public tap. Westminster Council said in response to the local’s hack that the water is for the shrubs and plants only.
One mother-of-two revealed her sneaky trick on TikTok of emptying 150 litres of bath water into the water butt in her garden to keep her plants alive.
The video shows her pulling a hosepipe through the upstairs bathroom window and attaching it with string.
She then drains the bathwater through the pipe as her husband sucks the end of it to get the bath water flowing into the container downstairs.
In total, the dirty bath water was used to fill 15 watering cans.
Dog owners have also found ways of keeping their dogs cool during the hot weather, while others joked about stockpiling hoses ahead of the ban.
Meanwhile, TikToker Jenny Davies shared a video of her partner finding her filling up the bath with gallon-sized bottles of water.
Yorkshire Water is the fifth water company to do so following Southern Water, South East Water, Welsh Water and Thames Water. South West Water and Severn Trent have indicated they could soon follow.
In total, a hose pipe ban from each water company could end up affecting 32 million people.
The restriction bans people from using a hose pipe to water their gardens, clean their cars or fill swimming pools.
This TikTok video went viral after a woman was ‘caught’ by husband filling up the bath with gallon sized bottles of water. When asked why she was not just using the tap she said: ‘Because of the hosepipe ban. There’s a hosepipe ban in place, we are not allowed to use our water because the hosepipes are connected to our water.’ Stunned viewers said they hoped it was a joke.
People have been calling out organisations for continuing to use a hosepipe despite upcoming bans across the country
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