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Thursday, September 29, 2011

Water: The Stuff of Life




Once I realized how much water the airconditioners draw out of the air every night in our room, I itched to collect it somehow. It is completely pure water you know. Pure distilled water. Distilled water from the stores cost a bundle and when you use the Karcher steamer as much as we do, then it is a very costly recurrent expense.

So, when we built the new house, I got The Panda to route the airconditioner water discharge to convenient places for easy water collection. The children's airconditioners route into the service toilet at the back of the house. The master bedroom airconditioner routes into the rooftop garden just outside the room. We collect enough water to feed the steamer and to mop the whole house everyday. Any leftovers go to the plants or into the washing machine.

You can see from the photos that the water is crystal clear. It isn't drinkable however because drinking pure distilled water leaches important minerals out of our bodies and make us ill after some time. Still, it is enough water to keep water bills down. There are so many airconditioners in Singapore. Much of the water condensed out of the air is discharged into sewage pipes. What a waste!! If you consider that in one night 3 aircons produce enough water to mop approx 4500sq ft of real estate, with left over to spare for steamer and plants, then think of all the clean water that is poured into the sewage pipes. Aircon discharge should mandatorily be put into the rainwater collection system don't you think? But well... since no one has thought of that, Petunia has decided not to let that water go to waste.

Waste not. Want not.

We've other methods of reusing water too. There is NO bathtub in the house. Everyone showers. We stand over a pail as we wash and let the bathwater collect. This is enough to flush the toilets. I also made sure that the toilet bowl was right next to the shower area.

Of course, when guests come, all these ugly pails are kept out of sight. Shhhhhhh!

6 comments:

Open Kitchen Concept said...

oh, such a good idea abt the aircon! I collect water as I shower too.. heheh..

Malar said...

Wow! I never thought of this kind of water saving!

Petunia Lee said...

OKC - Ohhhh! Great minds think alike! Kekekekeke!

Petunia Lee said...

Malar - Water where you live is cheaper than what I have to pay. If we're not careful, we get a big dent in the pocket every month!! So I suppose I was forced to think through the water saving features of my house.

Wen-ai said...

That;s a really clever idea! Im gg to copy that for my next apt if possible!

CE said...

Haha... I had the same green baby bath tub as our wedding gift from mum-in-law! Too bad it had cracked so it was discarded.