This is how "water-shifting" will work

[Lupus]

Water is cheap so paying for a municipal connection is no hardship. Storing and more importantly pumping/circulating your own water isn't free. You also need to make accommodations for loadshedding.

Also, it's really easy to postpone refilling your tanks until you've given the system time to recover, but people won't because when it comes to water they tend to panic.

Water is cheap, but all the extra fees for it aren't :-( my water bill used to be a couple hundred bucks now it's at 1200+ by itself.

 

[bwana]

Water is cheap, but all the extra fees for it aren't :-( my water bill used to be a couple hundred bucks now it's at 1200+ by itself.

Our average monthly municipal water consumption has been 4Kl over the past couple of years. Our 30-day rolling average is a hair under 80l a day for a family of our.

First thing we did was to move the washing machine over to rainwater which saved us between 50l and 100l per load (top loader vs front).

 

[Lupus]

Our average monthly municipal water consumption has been 4Kl over the past couple of years. Our 30-day rolling average is a hair under 80l a day for a family of our.

First thing we did was to move the washing machine over to rainwater which saved us between 50l and 100l per load (top loader vs front).

Look mine has gone up to 180l per person in the house, but I do have a pool

 

[Vorastra]

Our average monthly municipal water consumption has been 4Kl over the past couple of years. Our 30-day rolling average is a hair under 80l a day for a family of our.

First thing we did was to move the washing machine over to rainwater which saved us between 50l and 100l per load (top loader vs front).

Meanwhile in Durban.

 

[bwana]

Look mine has gone up to 180l per person in the house, but I do have a pool

Fortunately no pool. They've been a major PITA with our drought restrictions in place.

We've been fortunate and it's been no hardship whatsoever keeping to 20l per person, per day, as apposed to the official 50l pp/pd the municipality is insisting we limit ourselves to.

Meanwhile in Durban.

View attachment 1611551

TBH I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be taking away from that? With our restrictions in place the tariffs for over 12kl pm are highly punitive.

How often do they actually read the meter? Mine was actually buried for five years or so and it turned out their guesstimate was pretty close when I eventually unearthed the meter.

 

[Lupus]

Fortunately no pool. They've been a major PITA with our drought restrictions in place.

We've been fortunate and it's been no hardship whatsoever keeping to 20l per person, per day, as apposed to the official 50l pp/pd the municipality is insisting we limit ourselves to.



TBH I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be taking away from that? With our restrictions in place the tariffs for over 12kl pm are highly punitive.

How often do they actually read the meter? Mine was actually buried for five years or so and it turned out their guesstimate was pretty close when I eventually unearthed the meter.

When I lived in a complex we were at about 20 to 50l a day, up here in GP apparently the average person is using 300l a day, according to them. As usual they are blaming the people for all the massive leaks

 

[Vorastra]

TBH I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be taking away from that?

That your system is clearly working. I assume you'd be around the same if you didn't have your system.

 

[Oldfut]

Yeah. I live in a small suburb outside of PE. You may not be aware of it but there is finally light at the end of our eight+ year drought so we're pretty well versed on water issues.


It falls free from the sky. I'd call that pretty cheap. All you need is a roof, some gutters, and something to store it in. I myself currently have 12Kl of harvested rain water and have relied on it completely for roughly 40% of the last two years and partially for the other 60%.


I've sent a lot of time in the third world, outside of SA. Some of it helping to promote availability in remote areas of Uganda and some documenting issues in the slums of Nairobi.


In some areas it's quite an equitable system, in others it isn't. A lot of depends on topography and distribution.


Indeed. Even SA

Sure, I am still for having buffer storage of potable water available cost effectively from urban municipalities, but not completely reliably. You have done excellently to only need 12kl for 10 months as with 3 people I am using 5 to 8kl per month, buffer storage maybe 2 to 4kl. Roof water is excellent as long as you can reticulate it separately and/or test and treat it. To each his own.

 

[Flanders]

I'm having a water-shifting dry run right now. Geddit? Dry run.

These simpletons' inability to fix a pipe break is something to behold.

 

[bwana]

You have done excellently to only need 12kl for 10 months

Not sure where you got those numbers from. Every time it rains the tanks get a top up.

 

[Bliksis]

What many don't realize, is that the level of water losses owing to poor maintenance is as much as 40% in the example of Tshwane. This is straight from an engineer who works with Water Affairs. There is a decades-long backlog of work to sort out the water reticulation.

This is the water I'll suck up with my wellpoint.

LMAO. Seriously, just a joke.

 

[bwana]

What many don't realize, is that the level of water losses owing to poor maintenance is as much as 40% in the example of Tshwane. This is straight from an engineer who works with Water Affairs. There is a decades-long backlog of work to sort out the water reticulation.

45% here in PE. Those losses surpass residential use but we're expected to cut back...

 

[Oldfut]

Not sure where you got those numbers from. Every time it rains the tanks get a top up.

"have 12Kl of harvested rain water and have relied on it completely for roughly 40% of the last two years" 40% x 2 years.

We agree to disagree.

 

[bwana]

"have 12Kl of harvested rain water and have relied on it completely for roughly 40% of the last two years" 40% x 2 years.

We agree to disagree.

I think most people would realise that I don't disconnect/reconnect my rainwater collection system on a whim in order to run the house off tanks. Rather I switch between rain and mains water supply as necessary. Currently that stands at a 40/60 split.

The exception being laundry, which is always done using rain water.