Water recycling

Pretty pleased with myself; been meaning to do this for a few days.

I have various scraps of plastic pipe (conduit?) left over from the house construction that went on next door. One particular piece was especially long -- but I didn't have a good use for it.

Then: inspiration!

At one end, a metal ''star stake'' (as the Aussies call them); a two-liter plastic bottle as a funnel; a few zip ties (cable ties); and some duct tape. At the other end, a plastic peg.

The idea is that we routinely have a few buckets in the shower, to catch extra water (Australia tends to go through periods of droughts). And I also bail out the bathtub into buckets, after the kids have had their bath. Usually, I pour this water into the washing machine, for the initial cycle. But I usually have more than enough for that purpose: what to do with the excess?

In the past, I'd dump the water on various plants outside. Problem is, the baths happen after dark, so it's a little awkward to get to the plants. Plus, it's a bit time-consuming, carrying bucket after bucket out to the plants.

And, it's not practical to just keep it in the bucket until the next day -- as I need the buckets empty and ready, for the next set of showers.


The solution was to set up a two-litre pop bottle, on a stake, next to the laundry room door (click on the photos to enlarge, to make the text readable). I'm typically in the laundry room when I discover I have excess water. Step out the door, and pour: Quick and easy.

The hose passes through the dog yard, and terminates under a tree.

The end of the hose is loosely held in place by a stake in the ground. Instead of lashing the hose to the stake with a cable tie, the hose is held in place by pressure: it wants to revert to a coiled-up shape, so it presses sideways against the stake. This allows the hose to ''break-away'' if anyone accidentally kicks against it: I'd rather the hose move than have someone trip.

The vertical green lines in the final photo indicate the edge of the tree's foliage (supposedly, this indicates the outer boundary of a tree's roots), and the approximate area that will get watered.


A lot of text to describe a simple idea...


--GG