Refilling and topping off are two different things, if you can save that much water by just capturing what is wasted before you use the shower then you surely can top off your pool. How much water are you actually losing? if you are losing 5-10 gallons a day, which sounds like a lot, but I know could be feasible, that's not going to trigger an alarm that you are using water for unnecessary reasons. Your water usage will not climb, because you already are topping off your pool on a daily basis, so that is already factored into you bill. I do the shower thing just because I can't stand just wasting good water ( no I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but I am a money watcher!) when I can put it to good use. If you have an automatic filler, the water company is not going to see any increase in your bill at all, because you have already been doing this all along. Your bill and water usage will be constant, there will be no change from before. If they allow water usage for lawns, then I'm sure they mean no drain and refill. Also with lawns everybody can see when you are watering your lawn and report you, if you have an automatic filler or even a hose in the pool who is going to know and report you, plus they have to catch you in the act, because remember since you have been doing this all along there will be no change in your water usage, so they would have an extremely hard time using that against you. Plus who's to say that when you dump 5 five gallon buckets of water into your pool that some one reports you?? How are you going to explain that the water is excess shower water and not twenty-five gallons of water that you filled up in your house and dumped into your pool? No one knows where that water came from, all they saw is you and your sons dumping water into your pool against restrictions. That water could very well be coming from your kitchen sink right into the bucket right into the pool and you trying to explain that to the cops. Do you really think that explanation is going to suffice? Once again call and have them clarify, topping off against drain/refill, because if it's no filling of pools, and you want to get technical, then that's exactly what it means, no filling of pools with any water no matter where it came from,for any reason, which I find highly unlikely.