Water conservation and solar charger

Back in April, we focused on reducing water usage. You might remember that there was little I felt I could do for that as well. We are not on a meter, so I had no way of knowing if we used less or not. Hubby has a penchant for leaving the water running when brushing his teeth and flushing the toilet every time he has a pee.

Anyway, we have repaired two water butts AND bought our fourth! I'm really pleased and this week, they all filled well from the rain we had. So now I have four full rain barrels and I feel very abundant!

While we were buying our barrel (a 200 litre recycled barbecue sauce container no less!) we priced up some large water tanks. We are toying with the idea of making our own 'grey water' system for the downstairs toilet.

We have a flat roof, which would be ideal for strengthening (it needs repairing anyway, so we could combine jobs). Then we could put a big tank on the roof and gravity feed the cistern. Hubby used to be a water treatment engineer, so I'm in good hands and trust him to figure it out.

I was horrified to realise, that unless I have a bath or use the washing machine, my biggest use of water is flushing the toilet. That just seems wrong when people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water.

In addition, we had a really dry time here during April and the beginning of May. All the barrels were empty and we had planted all our seeds. So we made use of our local stream! It was a great exercise for our daughter; having to go out first thing to gather a big bucket of water. She enjoyed it, and it was a great way to introduce her to the idea that not all people are as fortunate as us.

My other piece of news is that I WON the reuse competition! My idea of using an old coffee pot, piercing a hole in the lid and using it to store string without it getting tangled won me a Freeloader Solar charger for the car. We can use it for the mobile phone and Tom Tom, which is great and means I don't have to charge these items up from mains electricity in the house. Invariably the chargers get left on once the item is charged up and apparently this can waste quite a lot of electricity.

I'm just familiarising myself with the Freeloader, so I'll write a full review when I've had chance to test everything out.