Beat the hosepine ban with recycled bath water!

http://homecomforts-gbsbaby.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/soup-de-poisson-cream-of-prawn-head-soup.html

I know there is not a hosepipe ban, yet.  But I would like to share our white water watering system.

Our house had a water meter fitted by the previous owner, an elderly lady on her own.  And once fitted there is no going back.  Having been brought up in Cagliari, the capital city of Sardinia, where the water was turned off every night in summer to prevent wastage through the badly cracked mains pipes, conserving water was almost second nature.  So when the rainwater butts ran dry a few years ago I looked into recycling bath water for my vegetable patch.

First I tried a manual syphon pump.  It worked well enough from the upstairs bathroom at the front of the house, draining the water down to the water butt at the back of the house.  But it was a little bit tricky to get going, still hard work carrying heavy watering cans down to the veg patch at the other end of the garden, and stank in the water butt if left too long.

Then I ran across an electric water butt pump.  It is designed to pump water out of rainwater butt to a sprinkler or down to another collection point away from the drainpipes.  I used it this way to start, clearing out the dank bath water from the water butt.  But then I hit on the idea of draining the bath directly with the pump with a long hose running from the bathroom, across the landing, out of a back bedroom window and down to the garden and right out to the vegetable patch.  It was, well, revolutionary. 

Now, in long hot spells we put the plug in when we shower in the morning, collecting our shower water and pump it out of a cooler evening.  And with a high powered pump we can also pump out the kids' bathwater from my disabled daughter's adapted bathroom on the ground floor and pump it up the garden as well.  My lawn may look a bit neglected right now, but I have some lovely lush veg.

Tips

1. Clean the pump filters regularly.  I thought my pump had broken after only one summer but then I realised it had filters to clean!
2. Ensure the hose it firmly clicked onto the pump.  The water jet easily hits the ceiling and I have cleaned out/broken one extractor fan that way
3. Use eco-friendly shampoo and soup.  The frogs living in an old basin in the veg patch seem to love our bath water.