Lay My Hat

Hi,

We're a small B&B in Scotland on a private water supply that recently dried up and we are exploring a back-up plan for 2020 !

We've discovered Scottish Water will not deliver a water bowser to us as we are classed as non-domestic ! So we are exploring who would/could deliver to us or if it would be cheaper to close the business !!!

There are a number of questions:

i) if we get a private company to deliver potable water ... are we required to pay the council to retest the water before guests are able to use it (shower & drinking water). The council previously advised shower water must now be potable water i.e. safe to drink (!) ... is this correct ? We already advise guests not to fill re-usable bottles from bedroom taps ... but they still brush their teeth & shower with stored water i.e. from a tank... so there seems to be double standards here ... anyone know what the Law is on Private Supplies ?

ii) water testing costs are nearly £300 p.a. in additional to consumables (filters, UV, maintenance, etc) ... are we required by law to have the council Enviro Services test the water or can we go private and potentially reduce the costs !?

To date, nobody is willing to commit anything in writing and council officers will not comment on private arrangements !

Anyone else faced similar issues and developed a solution ?

Thanks HR

I'm not up to speed with legislation regarding private water supplies, but having lived in a number of houses in the Highlands with them, I understand the problem during a drought. What type of source do you have? Is it an underground one with a pump or is it straight off the mountain via a stream? If it's the latter, is there any way you can enlarge holding tank or pool? It wouldn't be fool proof during a heavy drought, but could help keep your water supply running during normal droughts.

It's a spring and we have about 10000 litres storage capacity, which we estimate would last about 7 days as it is shared with another property. We can't increase the hill reservoir and underground storage would be very expensive.

i'd argue non-potable water delivery would arguably be ok (showers, toilets, etc) with bottled water for drinking/tea ... but unclear whether environmental health would agree; demand additional testing at £300; and then demand additional testing once the spring is back up and running.

Basically, we are costing a solution rather than writing blank cheques !