Water usage with cloth nappies?

[tickle]

Hello,

I have a 14 month old son and have always used disposibles, mainly for convenience but also because we are on tank water and there is not much to go around. I have been reading the "Cloth Vs Disposibles" debate and found it rather interesting!!!!

Basically I was wondering how many loads per week would you need to do for the average baby, say of 6 months? I was also concerned about the waste water that pumps out from our machine as it goes straight onto our grass where my son plays. All of the new types of cloths seem interesting.

Thanks :)

[JanetF]

Hi :)
It would be a difficult decision on tank water alone. This might help as it has lots of tables and info.
http://www.clothnappy.com/articles/the_cost_of_washing_cloth_nappies.html

I wash an extra load of washing every 2 days which is just nappies but I also wash nappies with towels and some clothes. My water use has gone up slightly with cloth but not a lot. My son is 22 months.

[SugarBlossom]

I don't notice a huge difference,and my bub is 3 months, and there are so many cool new modern cloth nappies availible now, you don't really need to soak them!

I much prefer cloth over disp! :D

[JanetF]

I drypail too, no soaking. :)

[Angel_baby_1982]

We have a septic system, I use disposables, tried cloths and after a week our septic system overflowed!

NOT PRETTY!

Our son is 12 weeks old and we go through 12+ cloth nappies per day! I was washing over 2 dozen nappies every second day, by the third load the septic system threw a fit! I hated cloth nappies anyway, EVERY time he pooped it went EVERYWHERE! (then again when he poops he really POOPS! disposables barely keep it in!)

I'll stick with disposables!

[tickle]

Thanks everyone for your replies. The link you gave JanetF was exactly what I was looking for. I have done the sums and disposibles work out cheaper. I was actually surprised by the amount of water required.


Anyway, thanks again.

Have a great day!

[Kamaikia]

I am also on rain water only but I used cloth nappies. I would wash every 2 - 3 days in a twin tub. One tub full of water would do around 3 - 4 loads (depending on how dirty). I would just wash all of our clothes first then do the nappies last. If the water was too dirty (which wasn't often) I would fill it about 1/4 and do the nappies then. Overall in my case - I found it cheaper and easier. One thing was though I had to have a fair few cloth nappies just in case we went over the 3 days.

[tickle]

At the moment we are having to buy all of our water. It is costing us HEAPS! I just wish it would rain!

[cobysmummy]

i have used cloth nappies since day one.... only use disposables when going out to the shops... as he gets a bad rash from them... he is now six months and i wash nappies every second day... he uses about 8 per day... if baby can sit up.. why not put them on a potty every nappy change?? this could decrease the amount of nappies used??! and save money either from disposables or water from washing cloths???

[LucyE]

Water usage with cloth nappies varies with each individual. It depends on how you wash and what sort of washing machine you have.

For us, I dry pail (so no water used there), use fleece liners (and since DS has been doing firm poos, they have just rolled into the toilet so no need to even rinse), and wash every second day. We have a front loader that uses only 47L for a FULL load. The machine automatically senses the size of the load and adjusts the water accordingly. So, if I only have a half load, it will use less water.

Angel_baby_1982 if your septic system overflowed just from using cloth nappies, you're in trouble when your is toilet trained and starts flushing toilets. Now that uses water!

We are also on a septic system and don't have any problems with the extra washing causing problems. I mean, if I had more/older children, I would have extra loads of dirty clothes to wash too. Should I limit the size of my family based on our septic system??? With the use of grey water in the garden, a 'proper' detergent and warm water will kill nearly all the bacteria that would be in the water. If you are really concerned, can you organise for the grey water from nappy washes to go to a different part of the garden?