Here is something I had not considered before

[bigpaul]

(12 August 2013, 11:19)Lightspeed Wrote: Good observation BP, and great timing.

Currently I am living in the tutrmoil of fitting an entire new prep-specific plumbing system over the last weekend.

Your post got my mind thinking and I've realised that by closing the dedicated stop cock to the toilet cistern, hooking up the rainwater harvest reservoir to its drain cock and then opening that valve, I can back feed the cistern with untreated rainwater, without contamonating the rest of the house supply:-) This is an unplanned happy coincidence.

Thanks for sharing that thought

my pleasure...good to see it got you thinking

[Skean Dhude]

(12 August 2013, 10:56)bigpaul Wrote:

(11 August 2013, 19:06)BeardyMan Wrote: We're one of the few countries that truly waste water. We must use millions of litres of drinking water a day, flushing the toilet....

What a waste.

I don't understand why in the 21st Century we are still using drinking quality water to flush the bogs? it shouldn't be that hard to divert rain water from the roof gutters into a tank in the roof space and piped to the back of the toilet....they can do it with some new houses so why cant they do it for older ones? oh silly me! the water companies wouldn't get as much money then would they-as its not going through the meters !

What has it to do with the Water Companies. If people convert their toilets to use rain water then that is up to them. Many have, many are starting to do so. But nothing to do with your water company. Do you get your local garage to tell you to choose a smaller fuel efficient car? Of course not.

[bigpaul]

(12 August 2013, 13:31)Skean Dhude Wrote:

(12 August 2013, 10:56)bigpaul Wrote:

(11 August 2013, 19:06)BeardyMan Wrote: We're one of the few countries that truly waste water. We must use millions of litres of drinking water a day, flushing the toilet....

What a waste.

I don't understand why in the 21st Century we are still using drinking quality water to flush the bogs? it shouldn't be that hard to divert rain water from the roof gutters into a tank in the roof space and piped to the back of the toilet....they can do it with some new houses so why cant they do it for older ones? oh silly me! the water companies wouldn't get as much money then would they-as its not going through the meters !

What has it to do with the Water Companies. If people convert their toilets to use rain water then that is up to them. Many have, many are starting to do so. But nothing to do with your water company. Do you get your local garage to tell you to choose a smaller fuel efficient car? Of course not.

the water companies seem to have this strange idea that any water falling from the sky belongs to them and they will charge you for it, its already happening in the states and will soon be happening here.

[Lightspeed]

BP SD's right here. It has nothing to do with the water companies.

As far as I am aware here is no legislation obliging us to flush toilets with water company provided water. Most of us do so because we have not considered alternatives, nor for the most part do we have alternatived that will meet the high volume needs of our toilet systems.

Since the beginning of June we have been dinking only water that comes out of our Berkefeld. We have been truely surprised at how little we consume. By far our biggest use of water is bathing and the WC.

While work was being carried out on the plumbing here this last weekend, the water was cut off. Its really surpising how the family reduced its use of the toilet when it meant carrying a bucket of water 30 yards from the tank to the house each time they needed to use it.

Forget putting a brick in the cistern to reduce consumption of water, just cut of the water supply and force everyone to use a bucket of water and consumption will reduce dramatically!!!

Back on topic. I guess that I have been a kind of prepper all of my life. I grew up on the east cost and my family were affected by the big floods in late 1950s I have always paid attention to flooding ( it was engrained in my mind by my father) . Evert house I have ever purchased has neen assesed for flood risk potential. Today I live in a house cut into a hillside overlooking the rest of my little hamlet, and countryside for many miles beyond. Flood risk was one of the top priorities in chosing the place.

We consider the possibility of flood destroying our home and our preps to be a significant threat.....currently that threat is to economic survival, but in a future world that threat could be our real survival.

Se we will keep living on hilltops and continue cursing our choice when we are struggling uphill on the return cycle ride to the shop:-)

[BeardyMan]

(11 August 2013, 23:28)Skean Dhude Wrote: No water is wasted.

Nature pours trillions of gallons straight onto land that funnels into waste water pipes that take it to sewage plants, reservoirs and the sea where it eventually ends up being converted to enjoy the journey again. If we didn't use it it wouldn't make any difference. We might have fuller reservoirs but that would be it. The Gov would make them smaller and we would be in the same situation.

What we do waste is time worrying about wasting water in this country.

Drinking water is wasted. You tell an African that the water he travels miles and miles for to collect for his family to drink is what we flush our bogs with and I think he'll disagree with you on that. What nature does is natural, using water that has been cleaned for human consumption to wash shit down the drain is a man-made system, and wasteful.