05-23-2026, 05:30 AM
(05-22-2026, 08:50 AM)HereOnThePrimalEdge Wrote: Many of us, maybe most of us live on catchment, so anything we can do to save water will help especially during dry weather conditions. With El Niño expected this summer we could experience warm and dry conditions.
Here’s a fixture that allows you to wash your hands as the toilet tank fills:
There are several versions available in the US:
Sink Twice
SinkPositive
With the Toto seat lid (Costco has them on sale from time to time) you can also save paper. If a hurricane is on the way, you’ll only need to stock up on rice and drinking water.
We've had a sink positive for 14 years. They are expensive considering it's a flimsy piece of plastic with a spigot coming out of it, but it does look pretty much the same today as it did when it was new. At the time there were no competing products we could find in this country. I got it because one of the bathrooms in this HPM kit house is just a toilet and a shower stall. I wanted a sink and this was an instant plug-and-play solution.
(05-22-2026, 02:13 PM)leilanidude Wrote: Never understood how folks in Puna can run out of water, even if a drought lasts 6-8 weeks unless they have massive leaks or entirely undersized catchment systems. If that is the case, spending $150+ at a time to have water hauled to you, doesn't take long to add up to the cost of a long-term solution: adding more storage capacity or fixing the leaks.
I never understood that either. We have the standard 10,000 gallon tank and even when we had cattle (heavy drinkers) along with our goats and sheep we've always had plenty of water even through the droughts. The only time we got low was when we discovered a leak from the tank. We got it fixed within a day and haven't had a problem since. I think some people have leaks and just don't realize it. They can be anywhere between the downspout and the drain. A lot of people think if they don't hear the pump running they don't have a problem. A leak is just as likely to be before or after the pump. We've actually fixed four leaks in 14 years, 2 in the house and two before it. Two of them were due to improper installation when the system was originally installed, so one shouldn't assume that because their system is new it isn't leaking.