Water company raising bill any solutions?

[duanes]

Since I'm a bachelor, I do it the old fashioned way, fill a 5 gal bucket with old fish water, and pour directly into the toilet.
With particularly egregious loads, maybe 2 or 3 buckets.
I know some people, who have in set up automatically with the flush valve rigged up to a tank, and a float valve on a line that sends new water directly to the sump.
Problem with that here, is the cold water line water is only 32+' in winter, and I need to mix hot with cold for my replacement water for most of the year.

How do you do the toilets with tank water? That would be huge.

 

[888fish]

I collect the cold water before a shower into a 5g bucket, use to flush my toilet. During my 50% weekly water changes on my lone 170g tank, this is collected in a huge rubbermaid to water my lawn twice a week. Even amidst the CA drought, my water bill is only $60/month. That's great for San Francisco!


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[krichardson]

I collect the cold water before a shower into a 5g bucket, use to flush my toilet. During my 50% weekly water changes on my lone 170g tank, this is collected in a huge rubbermaid to water my lawn twice a week. Even amidst the CA drought, my water bill is only $60/month. That's great for San Francisco!

Interesting idea,catching the shower water before it gets hot rather than letting it go down the drain...I've been hearing about the drought in CA.

 

[888fish]

Well, I collect about 7g each day x 30 days= 210gallons. That equates to 3/4 of monthly aquarium water changes! And that helps with the sewer wastewater tier rates.


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[mudbuttjones]

Setup some aquaponics. Pothos or duckweed. Get some nitrate sponges to decrease the amount of water you have to change each time.

Maybe start a grow bed. Do some hydroponic gardening if you have room, I dunno. Just thinking out ot the box

Collection of the cold shower water is a good idea. Aside from PH, maybe rain water collection barrels could help too.

I'm pretty sure where I live the municipality calculates sewer rates based off of water usage, nothing more. So by repurposing old tank water your only benefit is that you aren't getting charged for using more water from the tap instead. (Which is good) Even if you water your lawn with old tank water, you still get charged the sewer fee, even if that water doesnt go down your sink..... if that makes sense. At least that's how It is where I live.

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[ragin_cajun]

Yep, makes perfect sense. The separate metering of sewage and inbound water is not something most utilities will do. Talking to my neighbor more about it, what they do here is give you a second water meter and second inbound water line--and they trust you to only irrigate your lawn with it--give you a cut rate on water into that second line since it doesn't go to sewage.

But, my neighbor has just lawn sprinkler system, and he says there's a couple ways our PWD will do it.




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[Belly up]

You may want to consider a shallow, hand driver well. Depending on where your ground water is it is totally possible and not horribly expensive. Check ant issue of Mother Earth News for ads. I had a friend do it in SE Michigan for his gardens, which were huge. If I remember correctly he drove a 2" pipe down to twenty feet.

It would take a while to get your money back but if you could do it you would have water for gardens, car washes and your tanks for as long as you stay there.

 

[xraycer]

A lot of great ideas posted so far especially utilizing plant filtration. There was a post recently where the poster discovered that he can dial his drip system low enough, where it wasn't detectable by the water meter.

 

[GreenTerror7]

I read an article on here about a guy using a drip system that the "water meter" or whatever that thing is that tracks how much water you use is called wouldn't record any of the water used because it dripped at a certain rate. I would attach a link but the search tool isn't working on my iPad.

 

[FMA4ME]

A lot of great ideas posted so far especially utilizing plant filtration. There was a post recently where the poster discovered that he can dial his drip system low enough, where it wasn't detectable by the water meter.

I read an article on here about a guy using a drip system that the "water meter" or whatever that thing is that tracks how much water you use is called wouldn't record any of the water used because it dripped at a certain rate. I would attach a link but the search tool isn't working on my iPad.

Reeeeally?? Hmmm... of course this amounts to stealing water, but hmmm...