We have ways of lowering water bills

As man of us have noticed increases in electric bills and found ways to fight them using CFLs or by turning off more things around the house, Ive noticed an increase in my water bill. As i thought about how much water i have been using for my plants and the extra that i have been using with the extra hand and clothing washing that i do from being in the dirt with my plants. I started to think of ways to cut down on water use from the house,so i though about collecting water from natural sources, and heres what i found out.

In nature the rain that falls has a pH of 5.6 and this seems a bit acidic when most of the city water is a pH between 6.5 and 7.0. Water that has been refined and is of pH 7.0 is only considered pH perfect because it has been made potable for human consumption and processing.Though for any type of vegetative plants this is not true, a high pH in water can wash out vital nutrients from the soil. Let the collection begin.

This is a very simple way to collect rain water, take a few buckets and set them out when its raining and collect the rain for use. Best thing is you can do what with it the pH of water goes up when you add nutes to it and when using rain water it wont go up as much, which in turn will help the pH of your soil stay lower too. you can also do the same in the winter collecting snow. i recommend that you still don't use (or eat :rofl the yellow snow, or any from the pile out at the end of the drive way as this will most likely have a high salt content (from the street salting) and other things in it. I recommend getting your snow from off of things like picnic tables, swing sets,chairs,and even your car, anything that is off of the ground will be a bit cleaner. By this i mean it wont have leaf, twig, or debris in it as much as it would if you just scooped it off the ground.

As it is winter and my part of the world has already been pounded by Old Man Winter, my examples here will be in the form of snow. however if you are to do this (and i have) with just rain water you will get what you collect in your bucket and its ready to use,the snow (for obvious reasons) will have to melt and warm up before it can be used. Heres what you can get.

For my collecting i use 3Gal (12Qt) buckets that i bought from the local Dollar Store. I just set my buckets out in the yard in the open on a table when it rains and how ever much it rains is how much i get in the bottom of the bucket.As for in the winter you can pack away lots more.Again its a simple process of taking your buckets and going out and playing in the snow and filling you bucket.Again for snow collection i recommend getting it from places other than the ground. Fill your buckets up with snow and take in to melt.Thats easy enough, Ive found that when i pack the snow to the top of my bucket i get about 6Qts (1.5Gal) of water to every 12Qts (3Gal) of snow thats not bad when you think that most of us only use a few Qts every few days for our plants. It takes most of the day for a bucket of snow to melt but this process can be made to go faster with use of a heating pad, space heater,hair dryer etc.

So if your like me and want to lower your water bills (as well as the rest) this can be a very low time consuming way to get some good old nature pr oven pure water at a minuscule cost.Happy Growing, MOJO for all. :bong2:

why not ill try it =D

youll be suprised i go through about 12 Gals in a 2 week period, just for watering the plants. That in a month is 24 gals just to water i didnt include what else i use it for my bubbler, cleaning of moisture meters etc. all in all i swwn that my water bill had gone up by about $40 per month. once i started taking advantage of the free water i can get it has gone down that $40 and a bit more.

Thanks Dubba..I was wondering if rain water was good or not for MJ....it does wonders on our house plants, and veggie garden..we collect it from the roof drains in 55 gallon drums...but for MJ I would just do like you said and catch only the rain water...roof has to many contaminates...Thanks for the post

What country or area do you live in? Water must be like gold. Most communities around here don't even have residential water meters. As a country dweller I have my own well. Be sure to check your Ph often, it can vary due to smog etc., rain water is usually good soft water though.

A couple years ago, the flushing mechanism on my toilet took a dump.
I bought a new one that does not use the arm and the float.
It is all one unit, and you can turn the supply off, remove a piece on top, then turn the supply on and off real quick to purge it of any buildups-It is still working good.
You can adjust how much you want the tank to fill.
Only fills the tank about one half the way.

My aunt had one that had a two-part flush handle-one part for number 1 -the bigger part of the handle for number 2

The one I got did reduce the water bill some.
My2,

Gb

And about rain water,
My mother SWORE by it.
When I was young I had the glorious task of collecting water from the 10 gallon stainless steel cookpot underneath the downspout.
The trick was to gently push the empty jug down in and fill it without glubbing, which would not disturb the contanimants that sank to the bottom.
Mom would leave the jugs right out on the porch-they would get a little green-we never worried.....
My mom was a green thumb, and always had BEAUTIFUL plants, indoor and out.
I have used rain water in all of my grows-no problems-did have root binding though.

Gb

I'm definitely going to keep this in mind for future reference. Once I have my own place and not renting anymore.

Dubbaman said:

I recommend getting your snow from off of things like picnic tables, swing sets,chairs,and even your car, anything that is off of the ground will be a bit cleaner. By this i mean it wont have leaf, twig, or debris in it as much as it would if you just scooped it off the ground.

Click to expand...

As it would be PHYSICALLY cleaner, it might not be chemically cleaner and can very likely kill your plants and you if you're not careful.

Make sure you KNOW what kind of wood/material your surfaces are made of. Most outdoor wood is PRESSURE TREATED, and contains arsenic and other toxic chemicals! When it is wet, those chemicals are leeched out, but because the wood is treated, it's why it doesn't rot.

Even CEDAR contains its own chemicals that can be toxic to plants. It contains plicatic acid where pines can have a toxic chemical called abietic acid. These are toxic to humans (causes breathing problems, so might not be good if smoked, lol) and toxic to pets, and most likely plants. This is why they use cypress mulches instead of cedar mulchs.

If your outdoor furniture is made of steel or galvinized metals, or even zinc/lead, these are all toxic and can be problematic to your personal health and your plants, especially boosting the iron and rust contents in your water.

Be careful to where you gather your water. We had a galvenized fence for the longest time and all the plants near the bottom of it collected run off water from it and they never survived. We recently went to a pressure treated wood fence, and it too killed some of my sensitive plants, but not the grass. None of the plants were MJ, but very similar plants.

So, tread lightly and check your plants regularly after initiating this collection process.

edit: however, CEDAR MIGHT be something to look at later in another experiment to help prevent bugs and pests in your grow areas? They use cedar blocks as a pesticide and bug deterrent.