To fill my pool before the hosepipe ban starts?

[SooticaTheWitchesCat]

There is going to be a hosepipe ban in our area from April so AIBU to fill up my 8ft paddling pool now before the bans starts?

It has a cover and I can keep it clean through the summer with cleaning tablets and top up with a bucket if neccessary.

I just want my girls to be able to play in the water if it is a hot summer and I wont be able to fill it after the ban come into force.

But if I fill it now will that be cheating?

....£200 for the year?... is that just water or gas and electric too?

YANBU. it's only one lot of water, reused over and over. I'm assuming you've got fantastic filtration - we change our water maybe every 6 months max, often less cos we go through phases of not using it. And then we syphin it out and water the garden. I thought it's kill the grass but it doesn't!

Compared with our neighbours with their constant lawn watering, trickle plant waterers, and weekly (well it seems like it) pressure washing of all in sight, we use hardly any water!

yes, £200 water rates for the year. Gas is about £80 for the year, electricity about £200.

HOW???????????????????

I'm planning on doing the same with ours. I also intend to video us doing it, so that you can see when it was done, just in case one of our horrible neighbours reports us.

I have absolutely no qualms about doing this as Anglian Water waste SO MUCH water each year by not repairing leaking pipes. Obviously they can't employ more staff to do this or their poor shareholders will suffer.

Nationalise the industry again, and maybe I'll be more careful. I'm not suffering just so some rich bastards can get a bigger dividend payout.

I guess that all depends on your definition of "suffering" doesn't it? If by "not suffering" you mean filling your pool when there is a water shortage and a drought, then I would think quite carefully. Your filling of your pool will be contributing to that shortage. You can't repair leaks but you can control your own usage of water.

During times of hot weather and high consumption the village I lived in as a child used to find its taps running dry because so many people in the town down the valley were "not suffering".

Yeh, fill away. Wouldn't want your children to go wanting would we. Just imagine if we have a really hot dry summer, and people are queueing at the water geezers, you can invite them all round to watch your children playing in the pool before they trudge home.

8ft paddling pool. Ha ha.

YABU

AIBU to be amazed at the hosepipe ban? I'm in Scotland and I don't think we've ever ever ever had a drought (not a historical fact...). We're just a few miles up the road really! What is causing the drought? Are there just not many fresh water sources in England?

Oops just seen Salmotruttas post, although to be fair if it was decades ago I'm too young to remember!

In simple terms, the west and north of the UK have about 2-3 times as much rainfall as the south and east. Both the reservoirs and the aquifers (rock) are low. They are being depleted faster than recharged.

To be fair, it was another poster than the OP who talked about leaking pipes and "suffering"

Equally as selfish though.

Thanks fossil :)

Opso you started a thread in AIBU to gather opinions. Majority say YABU. So you are going to do it anyway???what was the point of the thread then? Oh yeah!!! To waste our time! You are good at wasting stuff huh

Op so bloody space bar

Actually quite a lot of people have said IANBU and so habe most of my friends

Good idea about videoing it. I think I will put a photo on facebook too so prove when it was done just in case

It is bound to rain as soon as I fill it anyway, that's what normally happens.

Oh yes - publish your bizarre behaviour on FB - good idea

I think if summers in UK start to get hotter, and hospipe bans more regular, that the UK would do well to follow the Cyprus Model.

When we lived over there, at the height of summer the local village had a 'one day a week' water ban - it was shut off at Midnight Tue and wasn't turned back on again until Midnight Wed.

Pools (both permanent and the Intex type) had to be filled by tanker - you phoned the water man, he came and filled your pool, you paid him (it was about ?80 for a 12 ft round x 3ft pool) and he gave you a receipt. God help you if you lost this receipt - there were random inspections/visits where you had to prove you'd paid, and if you couldn't the state would charge you again and you got a fine. There was no computer database or anything, just a handwritten receipt. I used to laminate ours and sellotape it to the top of the fridge!

We had ours filled in March and emptied it in Nov - except the year we invested in a heater and kept it up just so we could take photos in it on Xmas Day.

YABU, it must be partly due to people wasting so much water on unnecessary things that means bans have to come in in the first place. (although that could be a bit of that on a mountain in Wales we don't have enough sun to warrant having our own swimming pool .)

We also spend £200 a year on water for a family of 5 with a water meter. 13 units a quarter.

We are an island, I don't get it.

What don't you get sandyballs? Or are you suggesting the OP fills her pool with sea water? Good idea.

I don't get that either!

I used to live in Turkey where it wouldn't rain for 6 months and there was never a water shortage there, why is our country so backwards when it come to everything?

I blame all the people who have a shower every day,flush the bog after only one wee and leave the tap running when brushing their teeth

you only have yourselves to blame