hose pipe bans, drought orders

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by specialone

In the rare times i wash my car, i never water my lawn btw ,i do my plants, why shouldnt i have the use of a hose pipe when i wanna?

Well I sort of agree with you, you should be able to make use of a hosepipe in moderation. BUT it is treated water made fit for human consumption by means of a massive infrastructure and is imho a waste of a scarce resource. Far better to install water butts to your drainpipes for watering plants etc.

Originally Posted by specialone

My fooking water rates have doubled in the last 10 years or so, i only shower so dont use bath, im not on a water meter.

You should go on a meter, you could save hundreds! If you really use as little as you say, a meter is a great thing. Many water companies were installing them for free, but I'm not sure if it is still the case. Here in Welsh Water land I can have one fitted free and if I don't like it have it removed for free. However, whoever buys my house will be stuck with it.

Originally Posted by specialone

There was a leak earlier in the year a few miles from me that was left for over a week without anything being dug up or anything.

Ofwat set the 'acceptable' leak levels way too high, there was a guy on bbc news last week defending his water company saying how they had met their leakage targets for 3 years running???
Acceptable was something stupid like so many million litres a DAY.

Agreed. However I understand that finding leaks is not so easy, my village has a leak somewhere of 20000 litres a day, they've been looking for it for 5 years! They don't seem right fussed about it though, they found a leak (not necessarily 'the leak') two weeks ago, but no work to fix it has been done.

There is no water shortage.

Government won't spend out to convert salt water to drinking water. Hell a Nucular sub can do it, but not the entire countrys resources?

Sod the ban, if I don't fillup my pond and run my stream, my fish will die. So SMB the government. Make better use of the resources you have/could have.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Daimo

Government won't spend out to convert salt water to drinking water. Hell a Nucular sub can do it, but not the entire countrys resources?

Yeah at so many kilojoules per liter. Not energy efficient and hence not cheap.

I bet compared to all these repairs, man hours, parts etc, it works out not as bad as what some people think.

[Luckypants]

I'll bet it doesn't. Desalination is energy intensive (read expensive and not environmentally friendly) and it tends to be only countries that have no alternative sources that use it.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

You should go on a meter, you could save hundreds! If you really use as little as you say, a meter is a great thing. Many water companies were installing them for free, but I'm not sure if it is still the case. Here in Welsh Water land I can have one fitted free and if I don't like it have it removed for free. However, whoever buys my house will be stuck with it.

You're not the first person to tell me that, while i agree it would save me money im against meters generally.
While i will pay less, will it be proportional? and by using less water as a nation due to meters, will it cloud over the leakage problem and they will still make huge profits but if they are meeting their demand targets they wont wanna find and fix leaks because it wont affect their supply or improve profits.

Im not a big fan of the water companies tbh, especially seven trent who are regarded as probably the worst company to deal with and did have the highest complaints out of all the water companies.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Daimo

I bet compared to all these repairs, man hours, parts etc, it works out not as bad as what some people think.

Eeeeeh?
Ok so you are going to desalinate water at big plants? Then what are you going to do with it? Throw it into houses?

Piping losses are the worst losses of the lot (excepting wasting hot water, like eejits using electric showers to warm their bathrooms up)... because the loss is right at the end of the chain.

If you are wasting untreated water, that's less bad, because you haven't expended much energy on it.

Im going to store it in my paddling pool, then wee in it.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

I'll bet it doesn't. Desalination is energy intensive (read expensive and not environmentally friendly) and it tends to be only countries that have no alternative sources that use it.

Vacuum desalination is relatively inexpensive if using solar or waste heat from industry. Sea salt is a high value by-product.

FWIW, I am using solar vacuum desalination at home to process 4-6kl/day of bore water. Most of it goes on the garden after cooling the PV array. Ignoring pumping costs (cop that anyway) , direct energy cost for desalination on this small scale is ~500Whr/kl from solar panels. It is not particularly energy efficient, but is a sight better than RO.

[Bluepete]

Originally Posted by MattCollins

FWIW, I am using solar vacuum desalination at home to process 4-6kl/day of bore water. Most of it goes on the garden after cooling the PV array. Ignoring pumping costs (cop that anyway) , direct energy cost for desalination on this small scale is ~500Whr/kl from solar panels. It is not particularly energy efficient, but is a sight better than RO.

That sounds intersesting, can you explain your system and how it works in words of one or two syllables?

Serious post.

Pete