feeding water butt from bath downpipe

[Jon P]

Our new home has no outside tap round the back, but there is a downpipe receiving a daily quantity of only slightly soiled water easily adequate to water the garden with.  This is by the front door round the side, but we wouldn't want the butt to be abutting it, and would rather route the stream of soap suds and unidentified bits of matter round to the back via a 5m obstacle course of the decommissioned chimney flue and the back gate.

So is there any way that this could be rigged up using one of these 'downpipe divertors' that disengage once the butt is full?  I would assume that this would mean the supply pipe would need to be full too for it to kick in, so couldn't be higher than the water level in the butt?  It's not really practical to have a "through flow" though I see that some butts require it, though there is another rain downpipe about 3m away.

Also interested in kit to extend the hose supplied with the butt / divertor to the 5m required?

[graculus]

I did, as an experiment, fill one of our water butts with used bath water by bailing out the bath with a bucket and lugging it downstairs (with the aim of watering the garden). The water butt started to smell within a day or so (presumably bacterial action on the organic matter within the water) so the experiment was quickly curtailed and not repeated.

[jsabine]

Sounds like a bad idea to me.

I contemplated something similar years ago, read up on it a bit, and never got a far as experimenting.

[Polar Bear]

I'd take roof run off but not any bath or sink waste as it'll inevitably be contaminated with detergents and other stuff.

We have a really good opportunity for roof runoff but nowhere to site a barrel without it causing obstruction. 

[Chris S]

I did, as an experiment, fill one of our water butts with used bath water by bailing out the bath with a bucket and lugging it downstairs (with the aim of watering the garden). The water butt started to smell within a day or so (presumably bacterial action on the organic matter within the water) so the experiment was quickly curtailed and not repeated.

At a previous place, I had water butts to catch rain water from the roofs. They used to stink too. Bacteria will get in there whether it's from your bath water or bird shit in the gutters.

I still wouldn't use bath water this way though. Too many soapy products.

[rogerzilla]

Huhuhuhuh...he said "butt".

If there's a hosepipe ban I siphon the bath water onto the lawn.  If you're more responsible you could put the plug in when having a shower and siphon that onto the lawn.  Lawns don't seem bothered by a bit of Matey.

[dim]

Hmmmm .... I would be weary of watering my plants with soapy bath water

[Jon P]

Thanks for the replies!  Looks like it's one nascent idea that'll get thrown out with the ... er ... bathwater, then.  Could always just plumb in an outside tap, and harvest rainwater from the roof.

[Kim]

I think if you want to recycle grey water like that you need to do some sort of filtering to keep the nasties out.  And the results are still likely to be better suited for flushing the loo than watering the garden.

[Pickled Onion]

Grey water's actually pretty good for the garden as long as you're careful about the products you use. But there's no way you want to be storing it, rainwater takes months to go smelly, grey water 12 hours or so.

People who do you his successfully often lay distribution pipies under the ground otherwise you get hair and other insulubles building up on the surface. Washing machine water is easier but you still need a manual (or clever) diverter so you don't get runoff and residue when the ground is sodden or frozen.

[trekker12]

Is there no guttering from the roof from which you could connect a downpipe to a water butt?