One-FIFTH the water!
 

Hey everyone,

At my house, instead of sewer or septic tank, we have a "holding tank", which is just a big tank in the ground. When it's full, I have to call the pumper truck, and pay them to suck out the waste-water and take it to the treatment plant.

I just got a notice in with my electric bill, that for people getting their water through the city (same utility company, but I am JUST OUTSIDE the city, thus, no sewer...) can expect an increase in the cost of their water bill.

As a percent, it's sort of a steep increase, but in actual dollars, it's not that much.

What I found interesting is what they used for an example of the cost increase. In the letter, it says "for an average residential customer.... who uses 5,000 gallons of water monthly..."

My holding tank measures 2,000 gallons. We get it emptied every two months. That means the average residential customer uses 10,000 gallons (5K x 2 months) for every 2,000 that I use!

WOW! The average customer in my area uses FIVE TIMES as much water as I do!

Now, of course, that's an average. Some people use more, some people use less. We have 3 persons in my household, some houses will have 6, some will have 1.

But think about it. What if we all used 80% less water? What if we all used 80% less electricity? 4 out of 5 power plants wouldn't be needed!

What if we used 80% less gasoline?

Anyways, I'm pretty happy that by controlling my water use, I can save considerably on my waste-water bill.

Of course not everyone flushes their toilet with laundry water! :rolleyes:

In every online news story about energy where commentary is allowed, the article and the rubes commenting all concentrate on the supply side- more nukes, more coal, more wind, more transmission lines, more everything. Bring up the fact that households today use way, way more power than they did even a short decade or two ago and that conservation efforts are in order and in fact are pretty painless and easy to do, and prepare to be marginalized, ridiculed, or ignored. :/

Works for water and, well, every consumable too.

And if too many people conserve they just raise the base rate or add a fee so you end up paying more for less.

One thing to keep in mind, probably not all of your water goes to the holding tank...

Watering the lawn/flowers/etc or washing the car for example. Granted, you may use far less than average here too, but it will likely skew the "5x" figure to more like "4x to 3x"

You could skew the results even more ;) run the waste water from everything but toilets through underground irrigation type lines.

Then only the toilet flushes would be in the holding tank.

I'd check on the viability and legality of this before attempting it in your area though.

I knew somebody would question that. But, no I really do hardly use any water outside the house. I NEVER water the lawn or flowers and only water the garden if it would otherwise be drought. Car washing is pretty minimal. When I do wash my car, I typically go to the carwash, that prevents dirty wash-water and soap running down my driveway, straight into the lake!

My water bill is in cubic feet of water, we tend to use 600 to 700 cubic feet every 3 months coming out to 1,600 to 1,800 per month of water used, coming in to the house for 3 people to use for cooking and washing, we just got our first washing machine and it's not even hooked up, but I suspect that number will start going up.
Unlike Ben, I do water the garden because our soil is sand, but I have 500 gallons of rain water that I use first and the only tap water I use is for a little apple tree, 5 to 10 gallons per day hauled with a bucket.

My house has 3 adults, two low flow toilets (1.28 gpf and a 1.1/1.6 dual flush), low flow shower heads and we try not to let the water run while washing dishes or brushing teeth, I personally have a juice glass that I fill half way with water to brush my teeth with, half a cup of water is plenty, but my basic water saving rule is, don't turn a faucet on if the drain is open, if you always plug the drain or put a container under the faucet then you can see how much water you are using.

I have my own well and the septic has a drain field so whatever water gets used goes right back and the only real waste is for electricity for the pump. Even so I don't engage in water wasting habits i.e. running the sink faucet the entire time to do dishes (unbelieveable how common that one is! :rolleyes: )

Even with your own well, the well pump is one of the larger electrical uses in the house and 2/3 of the water that the average person is using is heated water, so even with a well you are still using a good chunk of energy.
One of the biggest lessons in water conservation was living off the grid with a hand pump and heating all of our water on the stove top, just because of the easy of letting water flow over something and down the drain allowed for a great deal of waste, being able to take a bath in 5 gallons of water instead of using a 2.5 gpm shower head, not wanting to waste dish water because it would mean filling the kettle and heating it up again.
having water there on demand, under pressure allows for a great deal of waste.

I'd wager I don't use 2/3 hot water. Plus I have a gas water heater and it uses so little that during the furnace-off months practically the entire bill is for the monthly service fee. :mad:

P.S. Looking at a recent gas bill shows $4.22 worth of gas but then add in all the B.S. (7 different items that even the person I called at the gas company didn't know what they were) and it triples to $13.09.

It would be interesting to see how much electricity the well pump uses. I put a nice big surge tank on the system years ago so it doesn't kick on/off until a fairly decent pressure drop occurs.

Still, the electric coop is p***ing me off with rate hikes to the point where I'm considering going off the grid. :mad: I'd have to fit a hand pump to the well and I'd have to come up with an alternative to the forced air furnace, which I'm not that fond of anyway. The biggest electricity consumer in my house is the fridge, with over half the useage every month. I suppose I could do away with it and eat out a lot more.

P.S. Looking at some billing statements... the actual electricity I use/month at 9.6 cents/kwh is only 1/3 of the total bill, the other 2/3 being facilities charge, renewable energy surcharge, and tax.

The mixer valve on our shower is not working, it only runs cold, so I am going to experiment with not doing the morning shower, and just using a wash basin and washcloth for a while. We do have a bathtub and a small pool, so I can get totally clean that way when necessary. I know my grandparents used a washcloth and washbasin during the week, with one bath a week on Saturday evening.

If I were you, I would consider

1. Convert to LP (no monthly fee if you don't use a lot of gas) The increased cost of the LP is more than made up by the monthly hookup fee if you conserve. Insulate your LP water heater well if you do it to save more.
2. A fridge can be had or made in very efficient setups and is available in LP and 12v varieties. Get a chest freezer, convert it to a fridge (thermostat mod) and instant savings, if you can get the chest fridge to run on LP no more electric necessary.

The above suggestions are items I am considering quite strongly if I ever bother building/buying a plot of land.

Cheers
Ryan

Frank,
I know exactly what you mean.
My recent gas bill tells me for every one dollar of gas I use it costs me two dollars to get it there.
I don't know how much "service" a pipe in the ground actually needs but I am guessing it is not a lot.
Same with the electricity bill. 1/3 product costs and the rest is "charges".

Water usage for my place is 66 litres/day so for each month it is 66 x 30 = 1980 divide by 4 to get US Gallons and it is about 500 or so for everything...showers , flushing the toilet (damn criminal waste in my opinion but a legal requirement here) , washing the clothes and the dishes (the clothes washing water is used on the garden so that helps).

Peter.

Yeah, that gas pipe has been sitting there undisturbed for 43 years so far... the meter was too until last year when they replaced it with an identical old-school meter. Why? Because someone at the head office decided there is no way I could use that little so the meter must be defective. I should call them up and ask how that new meter is working out for them. :rolleyes:

What if we had 80% less kids? :p

"80% less kids"...ahhhh peace on Earth.

Guess you boys don't want to know about my 30,000-gl/month usage for a huge lawn, eh? Or feel compelled to offer answers to unasked questions (of which I'm not ever guilty, ha!). Texas is on fire and out of water is pretty much my signature on e-mails to family and friends these days due to the latest record drought. I'll be happy to be rid of this house (any non-income producing property) and it's attendant overhead. Soon, very soon, I hope.

And is my lawn green? Relatively, not at all.

Good related article in yesterdays NYT. Or, as Michael Hudson has it (roughly), tollcollectors at every necessity.

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With an RV/Marine toilet you will use less than 30 gal per month flushing.
And that is laundry water at that !

Hey, that's actually a really interesting concept! :thumbup:

Or, try a composting toilet. Hu-manure, anyone?

Actually, I did take a look at composting toilets.

Two issues with them though.

One, I only have the one bathroom. It's not that big. There literally isn't room in there for a second toilet. (And no I wouldn't remove my "normal" toilet to make space for it, nor would I want a composting toilet in some other room.)

In my case, I needed to minimize the water OUTPUT from my house to save on the wastewater bill. By reusing laundry water in the toilet, I reduce the total amount of water used (as compared to doing laundry AND using tap water in the toilet)

If I simply ran my laundry water to the drain and used a composting or sawdust toilet, that would be that same amount of water. By reusing the laundry water to the toilet, I minimize water use but still have a "Normal" toilet.

Nice for when people come over to the house and I didn't have to tear up the bathroom or do any kind of remodel.

I think that in a new house or heavy remodel, it would be easier to design for composting toilets, extra water-saving devices, gravity fed systems, rain-water flushing, etc.

The book HUMANURE is a really good read. It will make you question how we deal with human waste. Anything by Art Ludwig on graywater and cisterns is also very good.

The RV toilet just makes so much sense.
It made me sick to use 2 gal of fresh water to flush 1 cup of pee.
Wife didn't go for the Mountain/Fl Keeys saying "If its brown, flush it down, if its yellow, let it mellow"
The only must is that it goes to a tank then is sent down the drain in batches.
If you don't, the solids and paper will settle in the pipe as there is not enough water to clear the pipes.
Easy install if you have a crawlspace. Weekend project, no need to have the house tore up for weeks. Shouldn't take more than 4 hours with a helper.

For us guys, we can use a waterless urinal. Dual flush toilet valves will reduce a (now mandated) 1.6 gallon flush toilet down to about 0.9 gallon small flushes. These valves are sold for under $20 at home centers.

Many new dishwashers use ~1/3 the water of average dishwashers. Ditto for front loading clothes washing machines. Low flow shower heads can drop the flow from ~3-4 gallons per minute to ~1-1.5 gallons per minute, and some of them have temporary shutoff valves on them so you can turn them off while you are washing, and then turn it back on again when you need to rinse.

There are now gray water systems that flush your toilet with the water you have already used once in the bathroom sink.

Rather than buying some new components or replacing my toilet to save water, I slightly modified it.

On a typical toilet, the handle pulls the chain, which lifts the flapper. The flapper pivots up past 90 degrees, so it stays open when you let go of the handle.

I shortened the chain on mine so that the flap doesn't stay open.

This makes the toilet handle into a "momentary on" switch.

If you just want a little flush, press the handle down for a moment. Want a bigger one? Just hold it down longer.

This modification costs nothing, takes just a pliers and a couple of minutes to do, and is a great way to save water.

I've already got the front-loading clothes washer and water-saving showerhead.

The only other thing that I thought would be really cool is foot-pedals for my kitchen sink.

In grade schools and factories, they sometimes have these big hand-washing sinks that are activated by foot pedal. I thought it would be neat to rig up the kitchen sink the same way. Often, when washing hands or dishes, both hands are occupied, making it harder to turn the water on and off as needed. Because of that, the water ends up running more than it needs to. If I could turn the faucet on by pressing a foot pedal, and back off, just by letting off the pedal, it would free up my hands and save water.

Great idea on the toilet valve. I have ALWAYS wanted a foot operated sink faucet valve.

I discovered a long time ago that on my toilet i could do a small flush by carefully pushing the button half way and releasing it quickly.

One bathroom and all those cars!?!

I looooooooove waterless urinals. How do they work, exactly? I know there's oil, which sets atop water and urine, masking the odor, but what beyond this. Like, where does my urine go, Neil?!

I love the grey water for the toilet, too.

My monthly usage was 12,000 gallons, now with less people its 2,000, that's more like it!

i know some one with a well pump, they have two power meters

the extra meter is over by his old rental, and all it powers now is the well pump.
hes low income and they are willing to wave the 8.00 a month fee for one of his two meters. so truly the only thing on the meter is the well pump and nothing else.

the power rate is 0.0607 cents, and it uses less than $3.00 a month all year.
most of the time its about 1.25 2.00 to run the well pump.

he pre-pays $20.00 once a year or so.

the pump is about 400 feet down, and is rated at 10 or 15 GPM its a 220V pump.

so worst case raise the power rate to 0.15 cents and that's like $15.00 a month

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as far as water at are place, its 15psi gravity with a 1 gpm recovery in the summer and a 1,700 gal holding tank.

for the garden, we have a pond that's about 1 acre and it can supply way more than we could ever need for the garden. granted its up hill so a small engine with a water pump is needed.

Or you could go back to the time tested technology of the icebox, which requires no external power source. Build an icehouse (traditionally insulated with sawdust), fill it with ice harvested from a nearby lake during your long winter, and use your ice prongs to haul a block of ice to your icebox twice a week to keep it cold. No worries about a compressor failure or extended power outages ruining your food.

Some are turned off to composting toilets thinking they are all like smelly old outhouses.

After using a modern composting toilet, I think they are actually preferable to water toilets. This is because they use ventilation systems that actually draw a slight vacuum when the seat is up, making using one of these things actually more odor free than a water toilet.

If I was going to build a house and could convince the wife, this is the way I would go. If I had a holding tank that I had to pay to get emptied, I would definitely do it. Would rather send my gray water into the yard to make the yard/garden green, then soil it with crap and then pay to have it hauled.

Imagine how well your garden would do on that gray water and manure diet.

well here in calif. my town Los Osos we are getting a sewer plant so when we flush its going to cots 120-180 mo. est only as for now and is based on your water usage. My water cost every mo for 3 is 95.00,I never use my minimum alotment . I have gray water for all sinks and recycle my water for the fruit trees, I also have sandy soil and a well. PG&E the electric co has gone to smart meters , remotely read and the rates are thru the roof. we dont have the right to go off grid, b. s. i say. welcome to calif.

The other issue with iceboxes is dealing with the water that is created as the ice melts, but I wonder if that could be reused for an evaporative cooling system. Perhaps some sort of semi-automated fan and an absorbent material that the melt water runs through could become a swamp-cooler.

Cool your food and your house!

When I purchased my house, I received a letter that said sewer charges will be based on water usage. For the first couple months there was no water usage, but I still received a sewer bill. Apparently they charge $34/mo regardless of use, for all eternity. I called the sewer company and told them they could discontinue service and I wasn't going to pay the bill. They responded that they can't discontinue service and that they would put a lien on the house.

I can't believe it is legal to take ownership of a persons home just because they wouldn't pay for a service they didn't want, but were forced to have.

can you say corporate america

All the propaganda shoved down my throat in school said we are the free-est country... nah, I don't think so. :/

My 4 year average is 583 gallons / month of water.

Computer and water heating are most electricity using things here, both take about the same as I don't use much of hot water. I do have own well too, but it would need some work to be done to get it to usable.

I could still reduce water usage a bit by changing to dry toilet which is in plans and to use well water for bathing and for washing frying pan etc. maybe even for drinking, but it might not provide enough water for all of that.

Dirt water well costs 100 euros to empty and it is currently emptied yearly, but that is going to change in future to some other method, maybe I can move completely independent in regards of water and waste water.

With electricity I pay almost 20€/month just from right to use it, so I do search alternatives a lot, but to store electricity for 5 months use is still too expensive and currently I pay lot less from electricity than I use than what I pay from possibility to use it.

Soon it might be also reality that there is no longer possibility to be so independent from bought services, so I try to make transition quickly so that I would have my freedom of choice. Just would need something like lottery winning...


Working from home means that I don't need to be shower fresh every day, I don't need to wash silly amount of clothes either as I don't need to wear so high number of clothing in a week, also no sweating reduces need of showering rather a lot.

I don't need to flush toilet every time, if it is liquid one can empty his bladder quite few times and use single flush, of course impossible in households that contain female members.

Cold water is really not cold until you run it for a while, so washing hands can be done with room temperature water easily, then one can plan bit of water usage and take drinking water to bigger container after dish washing etc. put container to fridge and take water from there, reduces water usage and it is not taking much of electricity either.

Why put that water into drain, with wash basin one can collect the water and use it to tomatoes etc or if soap water, then one can always put it to toilet or throw outside as long as soap is nature friendly type which anyone should use anyways as it does make many more things possible with water.

It is bit like hypermiling, to plan ahead and 'coast' (use wash basin collect water instead of draining water and taking new one, which is like accelerating and braking at traffic lights).

Good for constipation:eek:

It's a safety thing... mandated like seat belts and airbags in cars. Granted, there is sometimes no logic behind it (if you aren't using it then why charge you for it), but each home must have an approved system for handling human waste (either a septic system or a connection to the city sewer system). So unlike water, electric, phone, you can't just 'turn off' sewer.