g'day toby, many local gov's have laws that simply don't reflect common sense, so the best thing is use your grey water by all means but don't tell anyone "what the eye don't see the heart won't yearn for". there is no documented hard case evidence to support any claims of any health issues. anyhow having said all that we re-use all of our water, the target to use water at least twice and more if we can. makes good water management sense in these drought times or anytime for that matter. we have buckets in the shower to trap as much water as is possible, and we also use grey water to flush the solids in the toilet, wee doesn't get flushed. we use a homemade laundry gel come hand cleaner and general purpose cleaner, recipe on our site. can be used as dish detergent if you don't mind no suds. we use a 15 litre plastic basin in the sink so we can take that water to the garden as well. don't store the grey water for any period of time use it as fresh as it comes, and probaly best to run it direct from the machine to the gardens using a hose of similar diameter to the machine hose, use of drippers may mean lots of clogging. you could incorporate a simple screen filter to filter as much of the hair and lint if you wish but hardly worth the bother. len Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Here's a tip on how to determine if you have a leak ... this wont tell you where it is, but will tell you if one exists. Your "experienced" plumber should of done this if they were not able to find an obvious leak in the kitchen. Make sure there is no water running in the house. This means turning off all water inside and outside the house including showers, sinks, washing machines and any appliance that uses water. If you have a sprinkler irrigation system, manually shut it off. Find your water meter. If it's above ground it's usually on the side of the house. If it's underground, it's usually in the front, near the curb, under a metal plate. The meter has a dial with some numbers and usually a small triangle. If either the triangle is spinning or the hand on the dial is moving you are currently using water and thus have a leak. If neither is happening, take a close look at the current position of the hand. Wait 15 minutes and look at the dial again. If the hand moved, you have a small leak. If you do have a leak, I would suggest you first check the toilet before fretting about the kitchen. It's very common for there to be a leak in the toilet flapper that does no damage (just wastes water). Flush the toilet as normal and while the tank is refilling with water and 3 drops of food coloring. Check the toilet bowl in half an hour. If you see color in the bowl, you have a leak that will probably be fixed simply by replacing the flapper. Fix any toilet leaks and then repeat the meter test to see if there may be leaks anywhere else.

thanks for the advice, after i found water under the washer while in the laundry room i removed the washer to outside and after looking inside ( after removing the front panel ) for a couple of days and not finding a water leak i put back together and moved back into laundry room and started using, it still leaked, it wasnt a visible leak outside while working on it because i never thought to look in the back of washer to actually see the water escaping from hot water side, so after finding it was leaking from valve hot water side i attatched hose to hot water port hoping that would keep the water escaping from the hot water side, i knew the valve went bad i just thought keeping water in an enclosed system by attatching hose to both ports would stop the leak, it didnt work, the water found its way from the valve itself since the hoses were keeping pressure inside , but again, the water found its way to leak, so, i ordered a new valve, it came in and it was the cheapest valve i could buy on amazon, 10 bucks, it leaked a dribble when put on and started, i began to think i got what i paid for and am returning valve for a more expensive brand, AND the cold and hot water ports are not joined or combined inside the valve in any way , two different ports with two different solenoids , i will update when i get that on, the photos of the washer drum above are horrible, it looks like well water or near a beach where water is not greatly filtered, our washer is old, 2000 model GE profile, and has always used on cold only, but ours is as clean as the day we bought it honestly. i dont know why, i dont do the laundry i just fix things that break , i can do laundry :) i rarely do, i think my mother said hot water can fade or make colors " bleed " making the whole load the same color ? i have no idea, i just dont want to have to replace the flooring in the laundry room so the washer has been moved outside on back porch again until new valve arrives, i was wondering if Jeff had any luck or ideas that i had not considered, i didnt think this 5 year old thread would still be active, i am very pleased it is, thank you.

I agree with klem. I cant think of a reason for that problem other than a loose connection in the drain/waste plumbing, but the smell would be localized. Definitely have your water supply tested for contaminants. Considering you are on septic waste, it would not surprise me if you are on well water which may have got contaminated. It would also make sense considering the smell is getting stronger, the more bacteria the more smell.