gardenlen wrote:
another view point on our current situation:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinio...page=fullpage#


Hmm, food (well, water) for thought.

sure is linda,

would you believe that someone on another chat said they thought we
should leave how we manage water alone as they thought we where doing
a good job the way it is????

anyhow for more thought material i have some text on the following
thread:

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/ftopic4183.php

and here's another:

http://www.aussieslivingsimply.com.a...7#post_3910 3



On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:33:13 +1100, Linda H wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

Probably a corporate spin exec....

gardenlen wrote:
sure is linda,

would you believe that someone on another chat said they thought we
should leave how we manage water alone as they thought we where doing
a good job the way it is????

anyhow for more thought material i have some text on the following
thread:

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/ftopic4183.php

and here's another:

http://www.aussieslivingsimply.com.a...7#post_3910 3



On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:33:13 +1100, Linda H wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

"gardenlen" wrote in message
news
would you believe that someone on another chat said they thought we
should leave how we manage water alone as they thought we where doing
a good job the way it is????

anyhow for more thought material i have some text on the following
thread:

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/ftopic4183.php


http://www.aussieslivingsimply.com.a...7#post_3910 3

an article in our paper tonight Len reported that a survey conducted by
Bunnings found the most common concession aussies made toward water
conservation was low flush toilets and low flow shower heads.

A good start to conserving water. Another relatively easy thing to do would
be to reuse grey water down the crapper (twice over then). Even better
recycle the sewer water back through the water supply following seperation
of waste and treatment. Sort of a closed cycle process.

rob

George.com wrote:
"gardenlen" wrote in message
news
would you believe that someone on another chat said they thought we
should leave how we manage water alone as they thought we where doing
a good job the way it is????

anyhow for more thought material i have some text on the following
thread:

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/ftopic4183.php



http://www.aussieslivingsimply.com.a...7#post_3910 3

an article in our paper tonight Len reported that a survey conducted by
Bunnings found the most common concession aussies made toward water
conservation was low flush toilets and low flow shower heads.

A good start to conserving water. Another relatively easy thing to do would
be to reuse grey water down the crapper (twice over then). Even better
recycle the sewer water back through the water supply following seperation
of waste and treatment. Sort of a closed cycle process.

rob


How about the minister who was watering the garden when he shouldnt have
been..
Two rules, one for us and one for them.
Re recycling, its a bit too expensive to do so at the moment.

g'day rob,

dual flushes surprisingly don't save that much water, the best saving
would be if people stopped flushing urine at all, only flush solids.

the low flow shower heads much the same, people need to work out they
they don't need as many showers as many tend to take.

yes save buckets of grye water to flush toilets will double use water
before it exits the home.

and yes for sure why not pipe that class 2 water back for use in
toilets and under control for some garden use.

we have a new estate up here that has recycled water piped to it but
it is only for the use of watering gardens and lawns, tat to me is
still a waste, why can't those homes be connected for using it in
their toilets?

a lot of the stuff that bunnings sells is goverened by the gov's feel
good measures they are the industry standard measures that draw
rebates, at the end of the day they do little to encourage responsible
water use.

we still need to remember that money spent on infrastructure is
investment fro the future, so why aren't all multiple use and public
toilets retro fitted with those waterless full flush urinals? why
aren't all new toilets in that catagory required to fit them first up?

why aren't water tanks compulsory for all new homes built?

and not to foget many homes are fitted with evaporative air coolers
these units commonly use 20 litres of drinking water for every hour of
operation.

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:49:31 +1300, "George.com"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
g'day rob,

dual flushes surprisingly don't save that much water, the best saving
would be if people stopped flushing urine at all, only flush solids.

the low flow shower heads much the same, people need to work out they
they don't need as many showers as many tend to take.

yes save buckets of grye water to flush toilets will double use water
before it exits the home.

and yes for sure why not pipe that class 2 water back for use in
toilets and under control for some garden use.

maybe we are lucky here in the Waikato to have a big river flowing through
town. Treated water is released in to the river upstream by several towns
and industries and we draw on that for drinking water, as do towns
downstream and part of Auckland. That said, likely the flow of the river
dilutes the waste water to a good degree. That said, each mouthful of water
I have contains some part recycled water from upstream. No problems with it,
lovely life giving thirst quenching stuff.

rob

"day len, re 20 liters, that should read flush 20 litres and evaporate
30 for cooling.
Total of 50 liters and hour. Not good at all.
gardenlen wrote:
g'day rob,

dual flushes surprisingly don't save that much water, the best saving
would be if people stopped flushing urine at all, only flush solids.

the low flow shower heads much the same, people need to work out they
they don't need as many showers as many tend to take.

yes save buckets of grye water to flush toilets will double use water
before it exits the home.

and yes for sure why not pipe that class 2 water back for use in
toilets and under control for some garden use.

we have a new estate up here that has recycled water piped to it but
it is only for the use of watering gardens and lawns, tat to me is
still a waste, why can't those homes be connected for using it in
their toilets?

a lot of the stuff that bunnings sells is goverened by the gov's feel
good measures they are the industry standard measures that draw
rebates, at the end of the day they do little to encourage responsible
water use.

we still need to remember that money spent on infrastructure is
investment fro the future, so why aren't all multiple use and public
toilets retro fitted with those waterless full flush urinals? why
aren't all new toilets in that catagory required to fit them first up?

why aren't water tanks compulsory for all new homes built?

and not to foget many homes are fitted with evaporative air coolers
these units commonly use 20 litres of drinking water for every hour of
operation.

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:49:31 +1300, "George.com"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

fair dinkum jonno?

that is horrendous use of sorry waste of water, 20 litres an hour was
bad enough, all this because people won't grasp the fact that our
homes are not designed to suit our climate nor are they designed to
keep people comfortable with nil or very minimal comfort control.




On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:34:07 +1100, Jonno
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

Fair Dinkum If you read back the post where I questioned the fact that
evaporative coolers don't make water like the compressor type do.
I will try and find it.
We had a proper installer I think he said he was..
I'll see if I still have it on file.


gardenlen wrote:
fair dinkum jonno?

that is horrendous use of sorry waste of water, 20 litres an hour was
bad enough, all this because people won't grasp the fact that our
homes are not designed to suit our climate nor are they designed to
keep people comfortable with nil or very minimal comfort control.




On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:34:07 +1100, Jonno
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

gardenlen wrote:
fair dinkum jonno?
Heres the article. Linda B was the owner. But if this is correct then
they use a heap of water if left on all day...

LindaB wrote:

Hi Len,

Just to confirm, and keeping away from words like "waste" for the
minute (as it could be argued the moment it is drawn from the mains it
is wasted, so things gets confused)

We have now adjusted, turned all sorts of things down etc etc etc.
Including reading water meters with no other water use etc etc. The
minimum this one at the lower size in the range will work at is:

Drawing 50 litres of water per hour from the mains

Sending 20 litres per hour of that water into the stormwater (until we
put the hose on it)

Yes - that sure would do horrible things to your 300 litres a day.

But my important message is - people need to have this sort of
information so they can make decisions. It does not seem to be
anywhere in teh discussions on water saving.

Linda


that is horrendous use of sorry waste of water, 20 litres an hour was
bad enough, all this because people won't grasp the fact that our
homes are not designed to suit our climate nor are they designed to
keep people comfortable with nil or very minimal comfort control.




On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:34:07 +1100, Jonno
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

On Jan 24, 6:52 pm, gardenlen wrote:
dual flushes surprisingly don't save that much water, the best saving
would be if people stopped flushing urine at all, only flush solids.

Well, surely they save a lot compared to not having a dual flush.
Let's see, I do a number two about once per day. Probably do
number ones about 5 or 6 times a day (too much coffee), and
I use half flush for those. I think dual flushes are normally 3/6
L, right? So that is a saving of at least 15L per day per person,
maybe 75L for my family.

Ya, I could double that saving if I didn't flush urine, but then
my toilet would stink.

g'day bruce,

we don't flush urine at all here, mine goes into a bucket for the food
trees etc.,.

can't understand the odour thingy? just doesn't happen here, not even
my bucket though it has a lid on it.

just the way i see it with water so critical there is still a lot of
good drinking water used to flush used water away with.

On 24 Jan 2007 16:45:56 -0800, wrote:
snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

"gardenlen" wrote in message
news
g'day bruce,

we don't flush urine at all here, mine goes into a bucket for the food
trees etc.,.


Another issue is that if there's a lot of women going, the toilet paper will
build up, then there may be other problems with blocked toilets.

I also can't stand the smell, not worried about germs etc, just the smell.
Overnight we don't flush, by morning it doesn't look or smell too good.

You've probably just gotten used to the smell.


Jen

In article ,
gardenlen wrote:

dual flushes surprisingly don't save that much water, the best saving
would be if people stopped flushing urine at all, only flush solids.

Excuse me?!

We put in a dual flush toilet last April, and our water use dropped 231
litres a day. Now part of that could have been the replacement of a leaky
cistern with a good one, and replacement of our leaky bath taps, but changing
from the old cistern (~25 l per flush to 6/3 l per flush) must have been a
fair part of that!

the low flow shower heads much the same, people need to work out they
they don't need as many showers as many tend to take.

Anyone heard definitively if you can use one when you have a solar hot water
system? Low-flow shower heads are no good with gravity-fed water, but
obviously ours is a mixture of mains-pressure and gravity-fed. The plumbers
I"ve spoken to have all said they thought it was unwise, but none are experts
with solar HW.

we have a new estate up here that has recycled water piped to it but
it is only for the use of watering gardens and lawns, tat to me is
still a waste, why can't those homes be connected for using it in
their toilets?

Some new estates are; I believe Rouse Hill has that. The difficulty is the
local water company's regulations, I suspect.

we still need to remember that money spent on infrastructure is
investment fro the future, so why aren't all multiple use and public
toilets retro fitted with those waterless full flush urinals?

Because it's expensive to replace all those fittings. You refit the whole
bathroom at once, not piecemeal.

why aren't all new toilets in that catagory required to fit them first up?

why aren't water tanks compulsory for all new homes built?

We have BASIX, which is helping somewhat. I believe there is a small rebate
for fitting a tank too, but it is nowhere near the cost of installation. On
the good side, I've heard tank installers in Sydney are booked out for months
in advance.

and not to foget many homes are fitted with evaporative air coolers
these units commonly use 20 litres of drinking water for every hour of
operation.

Not down here; we're just chewing up coal and spitting out greenhouse
emissions with refrigerative systems.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue