Water Conservation (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Clovis: transporting, how much, income)

[highdesertmutz]

Originally Posted by mortimer

songinthewind7 suggested to conserve water:

> ... instead of letting the water run to get hot,
> I use a container for the cold water running ...

I use this in the shower. The water is then used either to
flush the toilet or water outside plants.

It's not necessary to always use soap in the shower, so they
can be taken much quicker without a rinse-lather-rinse cycle.
Just rinse-scrub and out in less than a minute.

When we moved into this house, I unplugged the irrigation
system and never turned it back on.

When washing dishes, I always stage them so pans and serving dishes
are at the bottom of the sink and dishes that are being rinsed for the
dishwasher get rinsed into the pans.

Also, it is not necessary to turn the water on full blast to wash dishes.
A trickle is all that is required. I visit other people's houses and they
seem to use more water per dish than I would for a full load.

you're awfully methodic and organized. are you married? if so, how does she put up with it? my wife hates organization, she goes out of her way to mess for me to clean up after her. so it seems. I do the same as you though, use a little at a time. I think mechanical dishwasher waster water too, but am not sure they do or not, we've never owned one. I've heard they don't get the dishes clean anyway?

[mortimer]

highdesertmutz asked:

> you're awfully methodic and organized.

You know you're right. Although most people say I'm anal-retentive,
geeky, and pathetic.

You might be anal-retentive if:

> are you married?

Yes. To a sushi-snob. I occasionally mention it.

> ... if so, how does she put up with it?

She laughs at, makes fun of, or ignores me.

> my wife ... goes out of her way to mess for me to clean up after her.

How funny. My wife thinks she's cleaning up, but misses so much
that I tend to have to follow her around to *really* clean.

I love it when she travels for a few days or more so I have a chance
to *REALLY* clean things up. Once, I hand-scrubbed every tile in the
house. Other times, I thoroughly cleaned the kitchen.

I *am* pathetic!

I *have* gotten her interested in composting though.

> I think mechanical dishwasher waster water too, ...

From everything I've read, a full-load dishwasher will use less water than
doing them by hand. They surely save energy if they are saving water.

> I've heard they don't get the dishes clean anyway?

I pre-rinse to the point that I think the dishwasher will finish up. Oils will clean
just fine in the dishwasher, but starches require a thorough rinse. Crumbs are
also OK, but really big food bits go down the disposal.

Ideally, if that water could be captured and used for irrigation ...

[highdesertmutz]

Originally Posted by mortimer

highdesertmutz asked:

> you're awfully methodic and organized.

You know you're right. Although most people say I'm anal-retentive,
geeky, and pathetic.

You might be anal-retentive if… | YouMightBe.com's humor lists

> are you married?

Yes. To a sushi-snob. I occasionally mention it.

> ... if so, how does she put up with it?

She laughs at, makes fun of, or ignores me.

> my wife ... goes out of her way to mess for me to clean up after her.

How funny. However, my wife thinks she's cleaning up, but misses
so much that I tend to have to follow her around to *really* clean.

> I think mechanical dishwasher waster water too, ...
> I've heard they don't get the dishes clean anyway?

From everything I've read, a full-load dishwasher will use less water than
doing them by hand. They surely save energy if they are saving water.

Ideally, if that water could be captured and used for irrigation ...

I have heard of people purchasing home gray water purifiers, but black water has to be treated by a waste water facility.
Many years ago, I worked as a mechanic for a commercial laundry, and they had their own water treatment facility on site. they also employed a wastewater technician to constantly monitor the wastewater from laundry machines into treatment, before it was dumped into the city of chicago's waste pipes. the employee we had was constantly sampling liquid from the bottom and the top of the separator tanks. about once every three days, they'd open a large valve on the towers, and dump the solids which were separated into a tub, and I guess these solids were hauled to a landfill. we would occasionally be visited by a city inspector who would take vials of treated waste away to their lab to test. the place was rigorously monitored. I can recall the laundry portion being shut down for days at a time due to violations city inspectors found. these shut downs lasted until discrepancies were fixed. they were (city inspectors) real nut busters.
since the city of T or C employs the use of chlorine to treat potable water, we used to buy our drinking water by the gallon. in the past few months, we purchased a little culligan water purifier which mounts on the tap. it is a carbon filter, and it does the job removing chlorine taste/odor and sediment. we have a buddy here in town who was trying to sell us a reverse osmosis system, but the cost was several hundred dollars. we only consume about a gallon of potable drinking water a day, 2 persons and dog.

[ajzjmsmom]

[quote=highdesertmutz;7620863]you're awfully methodic and organized. are you married? if so, how does she put up with it? my wife hates organization, she goes out of her way to mess for me to clean up after her. so it seems. I do the same as you though, use a little at a time. I think mechanical dishwasher waster water too, but am not sure they do or not, we've never owned one. I've heard they don't get the dishes clean anyway?[/quote]

It depends on the dishwasher, as to whether they get the dishes clean, I never had one until we moved to NM and I love mine. I have heard it doesn't use as much water as hand washing but I have never researched it to be sure.

[highdesertmutz]

[quote=ajzjmsmom;7622085]

Originally Posted by highdesertmutz

you're awfully methodic and organized. are you married? if so, how does she put up with it? my wife hates organization, she goes out of her way to mess for me to clean up after her. so it seems. I do the same as you though, use a little at a time. I think mechanical dishwasher waster water too, but am not sure they do or not, we've never owned one. I've heard they don't get the dishes clean anyway?[/quote]

It depends on the dishwasher, as to whether they get the dishes clean, I never had one until we moved to NM and I love mine. I have heard it doesn't use as much water as hand washing but I have never researched it to be sure.

Yes, well maybe those older dishwashers like myself at 56, are much too outdated and wasteful.

[mortimer]

highdesertmutz

> > ... dishwasher ...

> I have heard of people purchasing home gray water purifiers,
> but black water has to be treated by a waste water facility.

I would call water out of the dishwasher gray, not black water.
Soap and food bits are just fine for plants.

Please don't quote 100 lines in a post that immediately follows
the one you are responding to. It's bad form.

[geos]

Composting toilets would seem like a good way to save water. How common are they? How inconvenient are they compared to flush toilets?

[songinthewind7]

Mortimer quotes:
Please don't quote 100 lines in a post that immediately follows
the one you are responding to. It's bad form.


This has what to do with water conservation??

[songinthewind7]

Originally Posted by geos

Composting toilets would seem like a good way to save water. How common are they? How inconvenient are they compared to flush toilets?

Good question!! I don't know but you will get your answer on here.

[mortimer]

songinthewind7 deliberately harrassed:

> Mortimer quotes:
> > Please don't quote 100 lines in a post that immediately follows
> > the one you are responding to. It's bad form.

> This has what to do with water conservation??

It was a relevant post making a reasonable request.

What are you trying to prove? That you can use an editor to
delete the parts of the thread where I *was* on-topic so
you could make it look like I wasn't?

I've contributed a great deal to this thread that *you* started, but
I don't like seeing long posted quoted in their entirety so I said so.

Do you have a problem with me posting stuff in "your" threads?
I won't anymore if you request it.

If you are going to play this game, I would advise you never to
drift from any other thread a little bit.

This is ridiculous.