The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Onebrokelady

My local water company have asked residents to try to cut down their use of water and to conserve supplies 

greenbee

Onebrokelady said:

My local water company have asked residents to try to cut down their use of water and to conserve supplies 

I'm trying to work out how to set up a system so I can use the bathwater to water the garden. I really CBA to empty it with buckets, but must be able to sort out some kind of syphon system to the hose.

Si_Clist

greenbee said:

 I really CBA to empty it with buckets, but must be able to sort out some kind of syphon system to the hose.

Been there, done that, so know what a bore it is emptying with a bucket.  Looked into getting a pump (electric or manual, even a WW2 stirrup pump!) but however I played with the figures, it made no sense whatsoever to fork out that much to save not a lot proportionally on the water bill.  So it was syphon or nothing for us. 

Alas though, we have insufficient fall 'twixt bottom of bath and veg garden to make it even halfway sensible.  Got it working OK (by filling the hosepipe at the tap before hooking it into bath and trailing it outside), but (a) the flow rate was so low it took nearly two hours to empty a bathfull and (b) it wasn't at all easy keeping the bath end of the pipe under water as it emptied.  And with the bath emptying so slowly, you need to clean it more often ...

ETA - Should have pointed out that we have a ground-floor bathroom

GaleSF63

Anyone with easy access to the back of their washing machine can divert the machine's waste pipes into buckets. When the bucket gets full switch the power off till you put the emptied bucket back. I did this years ago for a few weeks - using little or no detergent. (The machine wasn't stuck under a worktop and was pretty near the back door.)

greenbee

I'm not planning on using the water for veg (everything seems to say this should be avoided, although I guess if you're clean when you go into the bath it shouldn't be a problem depending on what bath products you use), but it would be nice to water the flowerbeds. I might experiment, although obviously want to be careful not to end up with water all over the bathroom...  I can't get to the back of the WM, and wouldn't be able to sit and supervise anyway as I tend to do my laundry while I'm working. The answer may be to use the bath to fill a waterbutt that I then empty immediately into the flowerbeds. That might be more controllable. It's certainly something to think about. 

annieb64

Back in 1976 when we had a long hot summer my father fixed a hose pipe to the outlet pipe for the bath. We were ordered not to take the plug out until we were dressed then had to go down and move the hose around the vegetable garden .I don't think we used anything like bubble bath in those days-just soap.

Onebrokelady

Please just be very careful when using water from a washing machine, wash powder and liquid is really dangerous to animals. When I moved into this house I didn't realise the water from the washing machine was draining out into an open drain, this drain was blocked so the water from the machine overflowed to the border under the window. My dog went out and decided to drink some and it killed him. We took him to the vet and they tried to save him but the detergent had literally burnt through his oesophagus and he died the next day, this was 20 ish years ago and I had no idea it was so dangerous, even one mouthful is enough to kill a large dog 😢😢

GaleSF63

Onebrokelady said:

Please just be very careful when using water from a washing machine, wash powder and liquid is really dangerous to animals. When I moved into this house I didn't realise the water from the washing machine was draining out into an open drain, this drain was blocked so the water from the machine overflowed to the border under the window. My dog went out and decided to drink some and it killed him. We took him to the vet and they tried to save him but the detergent had literally burnt through his oesophagus and he died the next day, this was 20 ish years ago and I had no idea it was so dangerous, even one mouthful is enough to kill a large dog 😢😢

That's awful, I'm so sorry.

It makes me wonder about floor detergents - a dog or cat could walk over a wet floor and then lick its paws. 

Thriftygifty

GaleSF63 said:

Onebrokelady said:

Please just be very careful when using water from a washing machine, wash powder and liquid is really dangerous to animals. When I moved into this house I didn't realise the water from the washing machine was draining out into an open drain, this drain was blocked so the water from the machine overflowed to the border under the window. My dog went out and decided to drink some and it killed him. We took him to the vet and they tried to save him but the detergent had literally burnt through his oesophagus and he died the next day, this was 20 ish years ago and I had no idea it was so dangerous, even one mouthful is enough to kill a large dog 😢😢

That's awful, I'm so sorry.

It makes me wonder about floor detergents - a dog or cat could walk over a wet floor and then lick its paws. 

We don't have a dog, however that was my concern using cleaning products on the floor when our children were in the crawling phase, we have a steam mop now. 

Zentimes

Onebrokelady said:

My dog went out and decided to drink some and it killed him. We took him to the vet and they tried to save him but the detergent had literally burnt through his oesophagus and he died the next day, this was 20 ish years ago and I had no idea it was so dangerous, even one mouthful is enough to kill a large dog 😢😢

How dreadful, I'm sorry that happened to you and your dog.

I never let my cats walk on just cleaned, wet floors (not least because they end up leaving dirty paw prints!) because licking their paws is part and parcel of being a kitty. I'm not even happy when the Council randomly decide to use herbicide on weeds on the edge of the pavements. It's harmful to the environment and it is potentially harmful to animals. I can't see the point of a very occasional spraying, it doesn't get rid of weeds for any length of time, anyway many weeds have pretty flowers!