The water is wide, I cannot swim oooooooover

[ailbhe]

We are not in the affected area but Thames Water do supply our water and it does seem to be in short supply right now.

Water-saving measures we have recently undertaken:

• Using a dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand (saving about 20 litres a day, which is embarrassing)


• Rob and Linnea bath together


• Rainwater from the paddling pool was used to water the garden when it was too icky to paddle in any more


• R+L had a soapless bath and the water was used for the paddling pool, with lots of salt in so that it will take longer to go icky


• More leftover bathwater was used for watering the garden


• I left the plug in when I had a shower to we can use the revolting soapy water for something like loo-flushing if we find another bucket

I really am annoyed that we don't have lots of information from Thames Water about greywater flushing and how to set it up - it can't be that complicated. We've ordered a waterbutt with the bits and pieces for fitting it but the waiting list is long.

The big problems, as far as I can tell, here where we are, are landfill waste and water usage. I wish the people who manage these things - the people I pay are the council and Thames Water - would tell me what I can do to stop making it any worse than I have to.

Comments

[da-pol.livejournal.com]

Probably due to the relative complexity, and certain safety issues - you'll need to replumb the outflow from baths and sinks, install a pump and large tank, and reroute the water feed to the toilet.

The Environment agencies take on it is at:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/waterres/286587/286599/286911/548861/565687/?lang=_e

There's a supplier listing at the bottom of that page.

At the simplest is http://www.droughtbuster.co.uk who are selling a very basic self starting siphon kit to drain grey water off to a water butt - not much use in that form for toilet flushing, but good for the garden.

I'd have thought all you'd need to do it yourself is to divert the outflows from the various sinks and bath into a single downpipe with a pump at the lowest point (Below the kitchen sink), and rig a large tank in the loft with an overflow which would in turn run straight to the sewer in case you try to pump more grey water than you have space for - from there it's a simple enough matter to run a gravity feed straight to the cistern and a second pipe down the outside of the building for garden use.

I can see the microbial breeding problem being a bit of an issue though - no idea how to handle that.