Garden tap costing hundreds any suggestions on how to water plants?

[cupcakessl]

I have just been quoted £1000 for an outside tap at the front of my house.
I have a tap in the back garden but it’s not possible to take it round the back due to the long alleyway.

The plumber said I would have to have a pipe going from my downstairs toilet to the front and it would be a days work.

I don’t want to pay a grand just so I can water my plants.

I did take the hose through the house but it just leaked everywhere and made it very messy.

Any suggestions please?

I use a watering can but I am always going back and forth multiple times.

Yep I find our local FB page great for finding handyman. Just ask

We use bath water for watering our pants that’s really recycling we have high charging in our area also use it to flush the loo!

Probably the alleyway isn’t next to the house - if it’s a terraced house the alleyway may be a few houses down. We’re in the middle of our terrace and it would be way too long to take the hose all the way up the garden from the outside tap to the back, along the back of the other gardens, down the alleyway, and along the front of the other houses.

We used to take a hoselock one through the house but because we didn’t keep the hose immaculate on the outside, it would make the carpet mucky. DH takes watering cans through now and we don’t have much that needs watering out there now.

I agree, a water butt next to downpipe in front garden, or you could buy a longer hose and tail it down the alley

Are you relying on the plastic fittings supplied? Don't. Find the metal ones. Certainly cheaper than the price you've been quoted.

That's fantastic when the water butt is full but how's that going to help op out right now in this dry spell?

Plants that don't need watering?

@Harrysmummy246
Yes I’m using the plastic ones supplied.

I will look for the metal connectors, thank you

£1000 !!! Even allowing £50 for the tap and piping and a few hours work it shouldn't cost more than £150 - £200. I mean, based on that your plumber, if he's working 5 days a week is earning £21,000 a month!! Now do you see you might be getting ripped off? ( or he simply doesn't want the job!)

That is shockingly expensive. We had two cold water taps fitted towards the end of last year. One to the front of the property (on a wall directly in front of the downstairs toilet) and one to the rear, where they came off the pipes to the washing machine.

The plumber (who was working on refurbishing our downstairs toilet) charged us £250 for both.

Maybe there's a bit of regional pricing that makes it more expensive in your area, but £1,000 sounds outrageous. (We are in Bedfordshire.)

My belief is that when someone quotes a ridiculously high amount, it's because they don't want the job. Have you had other quotes?

If OP doesn't have any supply of water at the front of her house then it's a pretty big job to run pipework all through the house - presumably in a way that OP can't actually see it - and out into the front garden for a tap. That's not a £200 job.

The water butt suggestion is a good one. If you get a big one (or two) they should see you collect enough water to get through most dry spells.

Get a water trough that fills from your drainpipe. Troughs you can dunk your watering can in, rather than waiting for ages whilst the pissy tap fills it up. Do get a lid of some sort so you don't find dead animals in there.

As well as a water butt and all the other things mentioned, you could sink some plant pots into the ground. Then you don’t need to water so often.

In your situation I would buy a narrow garden trolley and some extra watering cans, then fill them all up in the back garden and trundle them down the alley in one journey. DD lives rurally and uses hers to bring logs into the house for her log burners.

BTW the trough idea from @Pootles34 is brilliant!

I highly recommend getting a T-Hose (Google it, and their reviews.) You can get extra long ones, or do as I have done and get 2 with a connector. They don't leak AT ALL (only leakage I have is at my garden tap, because the tap is quite old and leaks under the turny-bit!) Much better than any hose I've had before, including Hozelock ones.

@Genevieve29
Hi, thanks for that
Do you think it would work from a kitchen tap?

Thanks again

Looking on my front drive, there isn’t really space for a water butt, and the nearest drain is right by my living room window.

I have just been using a watering can at the moment.

Although I have an outside tap my husband set up a hose reel with an 80 foot hose that can do both front & back garden

I'm not sure, but I know they are great at answering queries. I guess it depends on your tap shape. I know you said running a hose down the alley was difficult, but could you not just get a long one and do that just for the duration of watering? The hoses retract a lot once the water is turned off, so they're not difficult to move and store.

It’s a magic tap that doesn’t need pipework.

Why do you need it to work from the kitchen?

If you connect your hose to the outside tap then run it through the house, then it's 1. Less likely to leak because the outside tap is designed to attach to a hose, and 2. If it does leak it will leak outside!

I've just bought a tiff house 100ft long. £42. I drag it (very easy) through the house to water the front.

Where does the mains water come into your property? If it come from the front (there is likely a stop cock somewhere out on the pavement) then it should be possible to have a tap fitted relatively easily at the front. If the mains water is coming in the rear of the house then it will be a lot of effort to put pipe work in from the back to the front for a tap.
easiest solution is a water butt. Some of them are very slim so don’t take up too much space

Ffs is there anything that one might need doing in their house at the moment that DOESNT cost a grand or more?! Honestly!

You can get quite small water butts op