"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"Claude" wrote in message
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As an experiment, I caught all of the water coming out of the washing
machine this morning in buckets. To my amazement, I captured 10 buckets
from the wash cycle and another 10 buckets from the rinse cycle! At an
average of 8 litres per bucket, that's a helluva lot of water - enough to
water my modest suburban garden. My top loading Whirlpool 7244E has
Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large settings and I had it set on Large.
So, since we do about four loads per week, Melbourne's new regime which
permits watering only by hand on two days per week is not the problem I
had thought it was going to be, provided I can find the time to collect
the water from the washing machine. The detergent I've got is Duo, which
claims 3.1 grams of phosphorus per wash, supposedly half the maximum
set by the industry's own standard. No idea if 3.1 is acceptable for
natives or not, but I'm a bit nervous about it so I'll look for one of
the liquid detergents at the supermarket like Aware or Planet Ark. I
could just use the rinse cycle water, but that seems a terrible waste.

when you get to thinking about what you could do with it instead, it is
indeed a terrible waste :-) i'd be nervous about 3.1 too, seeing as you
can now get 0g powders.

i was recently seen here singing the praises of aware powder (no
phosphates). because of the bizarre (to state it mildly) construction of
my house, the washing machine cavity is set up to just pump the water
straight out the wall (through a pipe, of course ;-) and down to the
garden. i just pump it straight out this way and have seen no problems at
all. the only thing i need to do which is still not done (gahhh!) is to
change the pipe so it's longer & more flexible, in order to use it more
effectively, as atm it does not reach many places, so effectively much of
this water is probably "wasted" anyway :-)

my mum lives in a slightly more normal house, & connects an ordinary
garden hose to the washing machine outlet, hose goes out the door onto the
yard, then she just moves the hose around at whim. your best bet is
probably something like this.

another idea if you're muscly, organised & don't have a handy door or
window (or hole in the wall ;-) near the washer, is to pump it into a very
large container or two, then perhaps either siphon or bucket it out. i am
thinking though that there'd be an easier solution than this with a bit of
applied thought. you can now buy large water containers on wheels (i saw
one with a tap & short hose attached, even) so there is certainly going to
be some solution available to you.
kylie


You can buy those hoses that fit directly on to your Washing Machine outlet
from Bunnings for $20-30