Use Bathtub Water to Fill Toilet Tank
<![CDATA[I am haunted by a vision that years from now my parched and sunburnt
grandkids living in a waterless hot landscape will ask "did you morons
really use 2 gallons of perfectly drinkable water to flush 8oz of pee?
Really Grandpa? Really!"
The purpose of this project is to take the waste water generated when
you showered and use it to fill your toilet tank through out the day.
Here's how the project works... When showering you close the drain and
allow the water to accumulate in the tub. By the drain of the tub I put
a small upright water pump (compact CO2 laser cooling pump on Ebay)
with the inlet facing down. To the outlet of the pump I attached a tube
that runs to the toilet tank. I used copper because I thought it would
look nicer. I also ran the insulated electrical wires, that power the
pump, inside the copper tubing, but that was a big pain.
The pump is activated by an electric guitar foot pedal that is placed
by your handwash sink.
When nature calls, you flush the toilet like you normally would. Then
when washing your hands, you hold down the foot pedal to refill the
tank. It is important to slightly close the water valve that normally
fills the toilet. This way if you have guests who don't know about the
foot pedal, your toilet tank will still refill.
This system has some significant issues. First you get cronic soap scum
in your bath tub. Misinformed guests may also feel
uncomfortable showering with an electic appliance in the water (note,
the pump is low voltage DC). Keeping the inlet of the water pump primed
is easy since the CO2 laser pump can be partially submerged. But by
keeping the pump submerged it also accumulates soap scum and it
limits your bath time (I said partially submerged, remember). Finally, having
cloudy water in the toilet just looks unappealing and surpises guests.
I have abandoned this project because I moved to a new house and the
copper tubing dimensions were not compatible. I also no longer work
from home, so I only flush my home toilet about once or twice a day.
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See also
