Posted By Fred Pratley We are looking at collecting and reusing greywater/rainwater. I am well aware of the implications of cross contamination of supplies, and implications of having to keep stored water "sweet" and potential health implications, and in view of all this, has anyone installed such systems and do the pros truly outwiegh the cons? Thanks in advance Fred

Posted By Robert K Lewis The use of grey and rainwater is best done with newbuild as retrofit can be inordinately expensive. Also unless you have a regular supply there are occassions when you need a townswater back-up. I have yet to see them totally successful except where there are private boreholes to ensure supply continuity. Rainwater storage can be a problem as I understand that it has been regarded as an abstraction by the utilities people if done on any commercial scale. Home gardeners are exempted! I would look at things like flushing volumes and self closing taps before you get into this area. These are relatively cheap to do and can have a fairly rapid pay back on metered supplies. Bob

Posted By Descarte So gathering water on your site and using it for comercial purposes is classed as stealing water from the water companies? Sounds about right

Posted By Merv Newman This response is intended to be 100% HSE. Especially E I was recently attacked (verbally) by a local councilor at a social occasion for "cheating" as we collect lots of rain water for the garden. We are metered and pay for the volume of tap water we use. What we pay goes to the water and sewage people. He felt that we had no right to "free" water as it meant that we would be paying less to the suppliers and treaters. So we should use expensive and scarcer potable water for the vegetables. Duh. Effectively I said "sue me" And I won't vote for him again. In particularly dry spells we have used "grey" water (dish and clothes washers) on the garden. It's piped into a couple of tubs and left to settle. There was something once about "grey water dilutes the real sewage so if everyone did that the undiluted sewage would be too strong for the treatment plant" Not my field of expertise. Haven't analysed anything, but its seems ok. As others say, you need a costs/benefits analysis. What are you paying now ? How much can you save by easy water-conservation ideas (do them anyway) How much can you recover and how much will the installation cost ? How long till pay-back ? The real no-brainer is saving rain water for the grass or for hosing down the factory yard. Wife objected to the stirrup pump so hooked up a small submersible pump to the hosepipe. And you get that nice warm glow of just knowing you are doing your bit for the environment. And saving money at the same time. Look. No jokes, no recipes, no innuendoes. Merv