Fitting a tap to a garden water butt.

I’ve got a big blue food barrel with two screw-in stoppers at the top, each approx 10cm diam. I’d like to use it as a water butt for the garden. Has anyone ever fitted a tap into a barrel such as this without cutting a big hole in the top?

My current plan is to drill an appropriately sized hole for the tap and then attach the retaining nut using a big ring spanner taped/ ziptied/ jubilee clupped to a length of batten.

Any other suggestions?

I have exactly the set up you describe, but afraid I just cut a hole in it large enough to get my shoulders through. Tap is just held on with a backing nut, a couple of big plastic washers and some silicone sealant. Going to be bloody tricky to assemble that through the cap hole, and you’ll have another one for the water diverter at the top end too.

Thinking about it, how are you going to get enough turn angle on the spanner to tighten the backing nut? Even a ratcheting spanner or socket set needs quite a few degrees for each click. You’ll not get that through the cap hole at that distance.

I think you want a bulkhead fitting or similar that you then mount a tap on. No need for ratchet inside that way, just a fixed spanner or cut a slot/drill a hole in the threads to stop it rotating from the outside. They come in plastic and metal so take your pick.

Too engrossed in Eurovision to do the googling for you but have a look at pipe boss fittings. Normally for adding a small drain into a bigger pipe where there isn’t a pre-made T piece. You just drill a hole, poke the boss in and then it kind of tightens against the inside of the pipe using physics or magic or something. I imagine there’ll be something in a size suitable for sticking a tap on.

Id just cut the whole top off and cut a disk out of some wood to make a new one. It’ll be quicker than trying to locate a tap kit taped to he end of a broom handle or whatever solution is dreampt up!

Or just get a syphon pump.

The plan is to turn/ tighten the tap onto the nut, keeping the nut still with the spanner, socket on a batten. I’m pretty sure that there will be enough flex in the seal to make the set-up watertight. We’ll find out tomorrow I suppose.

I don’t think it will be too hard.

Get it roighly in place then uou will be ble to line it up with your finger.

Superglue dots to keep ot on the spanner. Then you can shock it off.

Alternatively just sikaflex the tap on and forget about the nut.

I did pretty much this to replace a tap which failed on ours; I zip tied a spanner to the end of a long spirit level (can’t remember why I used that instead of a piece of wood or something…), fastened the nut to it with masking tape so it could be removed at the end, then turned the tap until tight. Worked a treat.