What can I use my rainwater for?

[Andrew Ferguson]

Other than the standard plant watering and for the small furry animals.

What else can rainwater be used for?  Obviously we can't drink it ourselves.  I have water butts that I collect it in, is there anything better? we have 2 butts that stand under the shed to collect the water from the drain pipe.

[Robyn Wahl]

Hi Andrew

It depends on if you want to treat the water, if you do, minimal treatment means you can actually use the rainwater for toilet flushing and for doing washing with the washing machine (yes, I do both!).  Another option for you, if you have a swimming pool (inflatable, metal sides etc) you can even fill that with the rain water.

[GemmaRowlands]

There is always the option of using it to flush your toilet. I visited Chatsworth House in Derbyshire recently, and noticed when I visited their toilets that they use recycled water from the lake to flush with, which I thought was a great idea. It didn't look all that clean, but I assume that there is some way that you could treat it in order to get rid of as much of the bacteria as you possibly can.

[Mark Haslam]

[quote author=GemmaRowlands link=topic=18.msg79#msg79 date=1412067537]
There is always the option of using it to flush your toilet. I visited Chatsworth House in Derbyshire recently, and noticed when I visited their toilets that they use recycled water from the lake to flush with, which I thought was a great idea. It didn't look all that clean, but I assume that there is some way that you could treat it in order to get rid of as much of the bacteria as you possibly can.
[/quote]

Maybe they have a system where they use clean water a certain number of times each day, or something like that? When you're flushing a toilet though, the most important thing is that you're getting rid of the waste that's in there, rather than actually cleaning it. There's bleach if you want to do that. But getting rid of the waste with second hand water would be perfectly sufficient in most cases.

[Luke Bainbridge]

I have a water feature in my garden that pumps water through it, and I always use recycled rain water to deal with that rather than getting new out of the tap. It reuses the same water but it's still good to replace it every now and again. But I do find that it is enough to use recycled water rather than fresh, as it still looks cleaner than the water that is being replaced.