Water saving excercises

javaman · Post by **javaman** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 4:51 pm

I know household only users 7% of the water but...

Installed my irrigation today, cheaply. Apparently those irigation hose cost only $4 per 20m

... Laundry water now goes to a reservoir and pumped to the garden. Using very little detergent now and hopefully will be able to use none later (when mrs is convinced).

One problem is how to collect shower water ? The plumbing goes directly to sewer and my brightest idea yet is to put a bucket and pump it over

bonester · Post by **bonester** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:20 pm

I wonder why no-one has had a go at moving grey water into the toilet cistern? Slighty soapy water would keep the bowl clean too. Might be better for the environment than routing water onto the garden?

Jonno · Post by **Jonno** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:51 pm

javaman wrote: Using very little detergent now and hopefully will be able to use none later (when mrs is convinced).

One problem is how to collect shower water ? The plumbing goes directly to sewer and my brightest idea yet is to put a bucket and pump it over

No detergent? do tell?

The plumbing would need to be diverted from the shower to a tank underground, above ground would require either gravity to be fed or the use of a pump, from the tank you can draw through a filter to remove harmful chemicals and also an overflow back to sewerage.

There are a few consulting installers who do exactly this work. Look them up.

Ratmick · Post by **Ratmick** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 8:35 pm

bonester wrote:I wonder why no-one has had a go at moving grey water into the toilet cistern? Slighty soapy water would keep the bowl clean too. Might be better for the environment than routing water onto the garden?

I can think of one reason - it stinks

.

We have no town water and recycle our grey water from the washing machine into a large 1000 litre tank. We then use an Onga pump to move it around the garden. After a while the tank stinks and attracts flies. We then need to use clean water to wash it out

. I suppose you may get away with something like a toilet cistern that is emptied regularly, but there's a couple of things to consider:
a) The cistern never empties fully and heavy solids would collect on the bottom. Grey water isn't clean.
b) The flush would leave a ring of floaties around the top of the cistern which would lead to the same problem I have with my 1000 litre tank.

HTH

Late Edit> The tank is way larger than 200 litre

javaman · Post by **javaman** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 11:29 pm

Thanks. I was about to extend the system further utilising a rubbish bin (250L) which is cheaper than $1000 tank

... been reading that the greywater should be used within 24hr. but did not think it would stink

must be all the bacteria in there.

I'll keep the current system then ...

bonester · Post by **bonester** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 12:05 pm

Wonder if you could use evaporation to rid the grey water of the crap? Then shovel the rubbish stuff into the bin?

mick_dundee · Post by **mick_dundee** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 2:31 pm

bonester wrote:Wonder if you could use evaporation to rid the grey water of the crap? Then shovel the rubbish stuff into the bin?

theory is good, capture the steam but then energy needed to produce sufficient heat to do so would probably outweigh any environmental savings you make by using grey water in the 1st place..

bonester · Post by **bonester** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:08 pm

Maybe you could evaporate the water in the sun?

mick_dundee · Post by **mick_dundee** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:46 pm

Andy is a gadget freak so if anyone can nut it out i'm sure he will... takes a fair chunk of solar energy I imagine to boil water..

aardvark · Post by **aardvark** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:00 pm

I don't think any of the governments in this country are that serious about saving water.

If they are, then why the hell do they still allow grape and citrus growers to use huge sprinklers in the middle of the day? Why do we grow rice and cotton in this country when it costs next to nothing to import it from overseas? Why the hell do we still continue to build roads and drains that allow storm water to just wash out to the ocean?

When the government decides to get serious about it, so will I.

javaman · Post by **javaman** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:14 pm

aardvark wrote:I don't think any of the governments in this country are that serious about saving water.

If they are, then why the hell do they still allow grape and citrus growers to use huge sprinklers in the middle of the day? Why do we grow rice and cotton in this country when it costs next to nothing to import it from overseas? Why the hell do we still continue to build roads and drains that allow storm water to just wash out to the ocean?

When the government decides to get serious about it, so will I.

I have read in the news poll that ppl are willing to drink recycled water a.k.a. refined piss

Not that it's wrong technically but when 93% of clean water is used elsewhere I just think it missed the point.

Coming back to my current system I just tried to move the shower water to the reservoir using aquarium pump (1000L/H) and it was not strong enough

it will take another $100 of investment for proper pump so I just forget it now and use laundry only as currently ...

Daisy · Post by **Daisy** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:25 pm

This guy reckons he's on a winner.

http://www.abc.net.au/newinventors/txt/s1794038.htm

nahima · Post by **nahima** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:26 am

The victorian government has introduced a $1000 rebate for large tanks and give information about grey water use (what/where/why). They also state victoria will most likely be at level 4 restrictions in April - this would mean no use of water on gardens at all and no commercial car washes either.

There's two types of installs for tanks that they talk about - one is a tank that plugs into your plumbing so you can use rainwater for toilets/laundry and the other is the more common grey water tank to use in gardens...

This is the victorian site:
http://www.ourwater.vic.gov.au

mick_dundee · Post by **mick_dundee** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:28 pm

aardvark wrote:I don't think any of the governments in this country are that serious about saving water.

Why do we grow rice and cotton in this country when it costs next to nothing to import it from overseas? Why the hell do we still continue to build roads and drains that allow storm water to just wash out to the ocean?

When the government decides to get serious about it, so will I.

Think you make a couple of god points there Jase, fwiw we actually EXPORT our ride to Japan.. so we probably already are eating imported rice, know sfa about the cotton industry to be honest but for sure both VERY heavily water dependent crops.

Re citrus, I thought the citrus industry here was all but stuffed given the cheap imports from Brazil, been worng on the odd occassion though...

Edit: typo

Mizz ZZR · Post by **Mizz ZZR** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:34 pm

Check this out for environmentally friendly laundry detergent

http://www.lightningcleans.com.au/catal ... 717775.htm

I think the 10 kg bucket is $50.

AND ITS TOTALLY AUSTRALIAN MADE AND OWNED!!!

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Water saving excercises

Water saving excercises

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