Water used in your home is classed into two broad categories – grey and black water. Black water must be sent into the sewerage system, but grey water can potentially be reused in your home.

Black water includes:

•   Everything flushed through a toilet
•  Water from your dishwasher (it contains a lot of grease, harsh detergents and other solids) 

Grey water includes:

• Water from the laundry, especially the rinse cycles 
• Bath and shower water 

 If anyone in your house has gastro or another tummy bug, the flu or measles, it is best to not use even grey water to ensure the disease is not spread.

Posted: January 28th, 2008 under general, saving water.
Comments: 1

Leaf guards for gutters generally consist of some sort of mesh sitting on top of your gutters to stop leaves, twigs, animals and so on getting into your gutters.

Whilst it is important to keep gutters free of such debris, gutter guards are not the perfect solution. Leaves can build up on top of a leaf guard which presents a fire risk and also means that decomposed leaves will get through the mesh into the gutters below.The smartflo gutters are based on the same principle but instead of a mesh across the entire gutter, they have a solid cover to the gutter. There are filters along the length of the gutter to allow water through but prevent other materials entering the gutter. The long term prospect is that the water harvested will be cleaner and the gutters remain unblocked and undamaged for longer.We have not seen these gutters in action, but the manufacturers claim all debris is blown away so these gutters never need cleaning, even in fire season.

Posted: January 26th, 2008 under collecting water, green products.
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I am so excited to be able to write about water things with you – I love Precious Water and am so proud my dad and mum are making tanks to save water.

 Mum is going to help me with spelling and make sure I write things that are true, but mostly this is my bit of the blog.

On our holidays, we saw that many people don’t want a desal plant near Wonthaggi – they even have a website about it. I wonder if they’d need desal if everyone just collected rainwater and fixed leaky taps.

In case you don’t know, desal is short for desalination (glad mum helped with THAT word!) and just means taking the salt out of sea water so we can drink it. I’m not sure what they do with all teh salt then – maybe put it back into the sea or maybe we could use it on our fish and chips!

Anyway, I hope we can have some fun and learns some things together as Junior Water.

Posted: January 23rd, 2008 under junior water.
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Savign water must be part of all our lives – hopefully, our children will grow up with a greater respect for our natural resources and be used ot conserving those resources whenever possible. And it is in part for our children that we care about what we are doing to our environment.

Part of our goal at Precious Water is to educate people about water, which is why we provide this blog, articles and images on the site. In order to make it easier for children to understand, respect and conserve water, we are introducing the Junior Water section of our blog.

Junior Water is the child of Precious Water’s owners, and with her Mum’s help, she will post about water and the environment at least once or twice a month.

Posted: January 21st, 2008 under junior water.
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Stage 3a water restrictions obviously affect pool and spa owners, too. 

If you have a new pool or spa, you can’t use tap water to fill it. Of course, you can use tank water or even ground water if available.

If your existing pool or spa takes 2,000 litres or less of water, you can use a bucket or watering can to fill it, but never with a hose connected to tap water.A larger existing pool or spa can only be filled with tap water if you have a water conversation plan from your local water company.You can top up your existing pool or spa with a bucket or watering can, but never with a hose connected to tap water.Under stage 4, topping up existing pools/spas by bucket will be allowed but no filling of pools/spas will be allowed without specific permission from your local water authority.

Posted: January 19th, 2008 under general, saving water.
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We recently saw ads for a new style of toilet. It has a cistern as usual, but the top of it is actually a basin and tap. So the water from washing your hands then goes into the cistern and is used to flush the toilet.

Instant use of your grey water with minimal plumbing and pipes – sounds like a great idea to us! Could save space in msall rooms, too.

We can’t give you a price or brand name, but it’s certainly something to think about next time you need a new toilet.

Posted: January 17th, 2008 under green products.
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As long as it is grey (and not black) water, you can reuse some of your water for non-consumption purposes – that means, you can’t use it for drinking, cooking, showering or watering edible plants (fruit tress are ok).

When using grey water, use it over the largest area possible to reduce the impact and build up of any contaminants in your soil. The use of slotted pipes is effective for spreading the water across a larger area, too.If piping grey water onto your garden, it is best to have the pipes underground. This has a number of benefits:

• No pipes for anyone to trip over or move away from where you want themKids and pets can’t access the pipe and drink the waterWater reaches the roots of your plants instead of possibly running off the soil
• Any spray won’t land on the leaves of edible plants 
• There is less spread of any chemicals and bacteria in the water

Remember that grey water can’t be stored for more than 24 hours unless it is being treated before use.Note that you can only use grey water on your property – do not allow if to run off into the street on your neighbour’s property.

Posted: January 16th, 2008 under gardening, general, saving water.
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If you have tank water, you can wash your car at home whenever you like. Of course, to save water you may prefer to use a commercial car wash or ensure you only use buckets of water and wash your car on the lawn.

Without your own tank water, you can use a bucket of water to clean windows, lights and mirrors, or spot clean any corrosive substances. Under stage 3a restrictions, for a full car wash, you must use a commercial car wash facility that uses less than 70 litres per car and recycles water.Note that if we move to stage 4 restrictions, even commercial car washes will have to use buckets for washing.

Posted: January 15th, 2008 under general, saving water.
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It is important to keep your gutters clean and in good repair. Cleaning gutters is the perfect opportunity to look at the state of your gutters, your roof and where the two connect.However, cleaning gutters is potentially dangerous so please consider the following tips when doing this task:

• Have someone with you to hold the ladder and help if there is a problem
•  Be patient – you will be up and down and moving the ladder repeatedly so just accept that it part of the job
•  Don’t reach too far from your body
•  Wear gloves and/or use an implement to actually clean the gutters – there could be something sharp or with a bite hidden below other debris

If you are present when someone does fall from a ladder and isn’t moving, do not move them and call an ambulance. Even if the person gets up and seems to be ok, a trip to a doctor is advisable as there may be injuries you can’t see.

Posted: January 13th, 2008 under gardening.
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A natural, cheap and easy-to-get pest repellent is flour, and it doesn’t take any water to use either.

To use it, just sprinkle it liberally over the dry leaves of the infested plant(s). Repeat after any rain as long as necessary to get rid of the bugs.

It is effective against cherry slugs (tiny little slugs that love cherry trees) and all other slugs as sliding over it dehydrates them so the go away or die.

You can use talcum powder in the same way, but the production of talc is not sustainable so flour is more ecologically sound.

Posted: January 12th, 2008 under gardening, green products.
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