Hiya peeps, following on from my Monday's post, Modern conveniences, there was a very useful suggestion from reader Enie Dub, suggesting saving water from my daily showers to flush the loo. Thank you for that Enie, but I don't have a working shower, it packed up years ago and I never got it repaired.
However, I do save my bath water, it sits there in the bath and is dispensed to the lavvy with a plastic jug. Usually one slosh does the job. The toilet bowl can get a bit erm, discoloured, but a quick swish round with a brush on a regular basis rectifies that. I hasten to add that the solids get a proper flush, but this uses less water than normal because a nice man from Anglian Water came and fitted a device in the cistern to halve the amount of water per flush.
To keep the bath clean it is important to wipe around the sides as the water level goes down, and when the level is very low it's time to let the last drop run away down the plug hole. But before it all disappears I take the cloth and wipe out the whole of the bath. Easy peasy, eh!
Come back later, I might have something ready to show.
Toodle pip.
We have water restrictions here in Texas and people are just getting the notion of how to conserve water. My daughter and her husband built a house recently and they installed a 30,000 gallom water tank that collects rain water and treats it with ultra violet lite for purification. They run their entire house on this water. The tank is enormous, but that amount of water that collects from the rain is really amazing.
ReplyDeleteDo you put the jug of water into the cistern and then flush it? Does it also work by just chucking the water into the bowl?
ReplyDeleteHi LBM, To put the jug of water into the cistern you would have to flush it first, then hold the ball cock down so it wouldn't automatically refill, and scoop the water up with the other hand to fill the cistern. That's ok if your toilet is close enough to the bath. Too much faffing for me. Much easier to slosh the jug of water into the bowl. Get a bit of pressure by holding the jug as high as you dare without making a mess. A good slosh with a bit of force behind it is better than a trickle. It is never going to leave your toilet sparkling white like a normal flush would, to combat that you need to swish the brush around in there. Use two jugs if it needs it.
DeleteOh, how I wish I could do that. When we moved to our small coastal CA town--and I wanted to pipe "used" water from the sinks and tubs to the garden--I was told it was outlawed here. Environmental issues having to do with ground water and run off to the ocean. Apparently a lot of folks now are reusing water in their homes, as we're in a severe drought and on water restrictions. The result has been an algae bloom in the county's water pipes. The water tastes awful and it's safety for drinking or cooking with is questionable. Grocery stores are selling out of bottled water. We've been having to buy bottled water, even though our water & sewer bill averages $90 per month, until the algae bloom is gone from the water pipes. :-(
ReplyDeleteI think this is brilliant. The gallons of clean water we flush down our toilets is such a shame. Wouldn't it be great if some clever person invented a way of reusing waste water like this without having to keep the bath filled - like a storage tank that takes the used water and automatically fills up the cistern after each flush. Debbie
ReplyDeleteHi im wondering if its possible to decant the bath water into one of those bigger plant sprayers like you use for hanging baskets. I dont know if it would be a strong enough force to flush but worth a go.
ReplyDeleteI really dont mind leaving 'yellow to mellow' as they say.
following on from Mondays post I got a plastic watering can from £1 shop tday it is open topped and has a very long open spout shape of ali baba lamp if you can see what I mean. I have put it on my juliet balcony with the spout sticking through the railings to catch the raindrops.
Forgot to say if you really want to get the last dregs of water out of the bathtub use an empty washing up bottle. Sqeeze the empty bottle then hold under the water then release to cause a vacum to suck up the water.
ReplyDeleteAh brilliant! I'm not surprised you save your bath water and reuse it.
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