What you can still do during a hosepipe ban
A Temporary Use Ban prohibits specific hosepipe uses, listed in law. Everything outside that list stays allowed, and the most useful everyday alternatives are never restricted.
Always allowed
- Watering with a watering can or bucket, filled from the tap. The ban restricts hosepipes, not water
- Using water you collected yourself: a water butt, rainwater, or reused household greywater, even through a hosepipe at most companies
- Drinking, cooking, washing, showering and every indoor use, exactly as normal
- Watering food crops at a domestic allotment or vegetable patch by hand
- Commercial use of a hosepipe where it is directly needed for the business
- Anything your own company's notice specifically exempts, which varies by company
What the law lets a ban prohibit
The eleven categories in the Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010. A company may restrict some or all of them; its notice says which.
- Watering a garden using a hosepipe
- Cleaning a private motor vehicle using a hosepipe
- Watering plants on domestic or other non-commercial premises using a hosepipe
- Cleaning a private leisure boat using a hosepipe
- Filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool
- Drawing water, using a hosepipe, for domestic recreational use
- Filling or maintaining a domestic pond using a hosepipe
- Filling or maintaining an ornamental fountain
- Cleaning walls, or windows, of domestic premises using a hosepipe
- Cleaning paths or patios using a hosepipe
- Cleaning other artificial outdoor surfaces using a hosepipe
Common questions
Can I fill a paddling pool with a bucket?
Yes. The statutory restriction on pools applies to filling or maintaining them, but every current company notice restricts hosepipe use; carrying water in a bucket or watering can is not restricted. It is slow, which is rather the point.
Can I use collected rainwater through a hosepipe?
At most companies yes: the ban targets mains water, and water from a butt or greywater reuse is generally exempt in the notice. Check your own supplier's wording, which we link from every status card.
Can I wash my car at all?
With a bucket and sponge, yes. At a commercial car wash, yes, because that is a business use. What the ban stops is cleaning a private vehicle with a hosepipe at home.
Is there a ban on using water indoors?
No. A Temporary Use Ban restricts specific outdoor hosepipe uses listed in the 2010 Order. It does not ration household water or restrict any indoor use.
Temporary Use Bans are made under section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991. The uses a ban can restrict are specified by the Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010 (SI 2010/2231).We are an independent tracker, not a water company or a regulator; your supplier’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.