Stupid, stupid, stupid! Left garden hose on...

[MM]

Came back at least two hours later to find I'd forgotten to turn off the garden hose after watering the plants, then going shopping. It was only on at a moderate flow -- more than a trickle, but significant. I've just read the meter under the pavement and worked out (extrapolating from my previous bill) how much has gone. The estimated reading for 20/Aug/12 based on past consumption should be 446. The actual reading is 448.68, so I've wasted over 2.5m³, which is a heck of a lot. So I'm planning on emergency measures like all-over washes instead of baths for the next three months.

But as I get older and more forgetful, is there a gadget I can fit to either turn off the tap automatically or warn if it's left on? Okay, so I wouldn't have heard a warning while out shopping, but I was back home for at least half an hour before going out into the garden and then noticing the lake of water on the lawn.

MM

[Andy Cap]

Get a spay gun, something like these.

C

[Clive George]

Nearly a whole fiver's worth...

[ARWadsworth]

What does 2.5m³ of water cost?

[John Williamson]

My Google-fu seems to be having an off day, but I remember specifying a valve that would cut off flow after a preset amount in the '80s.

I could only find this one:-

from the USA, which only lets the preset amount through, and is reset by turning the flow off upstream of the unit.

[Owain]

google for garden hose timer ....

Owain

[The Medway Handyman]

Yup. Clockwork hose timer, adjustable up to 2 hours;

[MM]

Not the point! Waste not, want not.

MM

[MM]

MM

[Phil L]

> Yes, I like the look of that one. And the price is not bad, either. It would be cheaper to forget about the hosepipe once in a while.

[SteveW]

Yep, I'm sure I remember seeing such a valve advertised in the 80s. It was entirely mechanical, intended to be fitted straight after the stop-tap and would allow enough to fill a bath, but would cut-off if the water kept running. Stopping the flow by turning the tap off immediately reset it for next time. It was being advertised as for saving your house from major damage if there was a leak while you were out.

SteveW

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

The local cats will love it.

[Andy Cap]

I was hoping no one would notice ! :-{

[Tim+]

Hmm, that's at least another 3 months of no baths to cover the cost.

Tim

[geoff]

In message , MM writes

Whats that worth, a couple of quid?

You reallyh are a bit of a tosser, aren't you

Just take the hit and move on with your pathetic life

Buy some ducks and wait for them to start quacking contentedly

[jgh]

But you still need to remember to turn it off at the tap. I came home one day last week and heard a streaming/spraying noise from next door. Their spray gun had half popped off the hosepipe and water was gushing all over the yard. I turned their tap off for them.

JGH

[tony sayer]

In article , MM scribeth thus

One of our neighbours went on a very interesting Winter holiday to the Antarctic;!, and just before they went in Feb they left an outside tap on which had froze along the hose pipe somewhere.

Well the weather got warmer and someone from the water board was seen outside apparently someone had noticed a hiss in a pipe they didn't like. Another WB person called round and said that there was a bad leak somewhere.

He said do I know the people living over there and I said yes and if you think thats were its coming from. Muttered that he couldn't get in I said I can, over the fence, only to find their garden was some 9 inches deep in water, quite a lake it was.

Dunno what the bill came to but I don't think they had to pay it all.. Must have been like that some three weeks or so!...

[Dave Liquorice]

Water meter?

[newshound]

They were lucky; I used to belong to a tennis club and we had a leak in the main supply after the meter which drained away without surfacing anywhere. Only discovered on the quarterly reading, and we had to pay it (several hundred pounds in 1980's money, IIR).

[Brian Gaff]

I was just thinking that, a kind of dead mans handle for hoses. Actually if it had still been flat rate and not metered from what people tell me that bill would be crippling now. I still think he has saved, also of course the water will probably be used by the plants and thus not so much watering needed for a while. Brian