We just got through washing our cars and boy do they look great! In spite of the water restrictions we weren’t even sneaky about it. In fact, we were hoping someone would call the water police on us because then we could show how we did it completely with reclaimed rainwater.
That’s right, today I decided to tap Lake Turner, the water tank I set up weeks ago to collect rainwater. I figured that rather than muck with finding a 2″ hose to connect to the bottom of the tank, I’d simply drop a hose in the top and create a siphon. It took a small bit of tap water to fill the hose, but once that was done I set it up in the tank and soon had a steady stream of water filling buckets and trash cans. Then I used the water to give our plants and trees a generous drink before filling a few buckets to use on the cars. Rinsing was done with wet towels and a few dousings from the bucket.
Lake Turner is down to 290 gallons now, about 30 less than this morning. That’s about the equivalent of fifteen minutes of gentle rain, so it won’t take much to refill it. We’ll have healthy plants and clean cars for a good time to come.
You can buy a small rotary pump for a drill that might speed the process up a bit and save the glass of tap water…
Actually, that problem’s been solved, too. I simply capped the hose while it had a vacuum. Now I can start the water flowing any time just by unscrewing the cap.