What do you do with your grey water?

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by ho-hum, Dec 1, 2005.

  1. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    On my property I originally started by pushing a 19mm poly pipe into the washing machine outlet hose and watering my lawn. Lucky I did because the lawn as far as the poly pipe reached survived one tenancy. The rest of the lawn pretty much died. A native aussie cassia also is within reach and it has grown remarkably. The cassia is a Golden Shower which are native around the Top End , my kids call it the Australia Tree because of the vivid yellow flowers and green leaves.

    The kitchen sink is diverted underground to a garden with a few palms, moses plants & a thing called mexican heather.

    My bathroom including laundry tub are diverted by hose to a bed of cannas, gingers & a heliconia. Lots of worms here.

    I appreciate that the discharges are probably phosphate rich but in 7 years I have had no appreciable problems with any of this.

    Black water still goes to the septic which seems to be holding up better and require less pumping etc.

    Does anyone else do any DIY water recycling. I dont have any water restrictions where I am but it seems a shame to pump this water and not use it twice.

    floot
     
  2. baldcat

    baldcat Junior Member

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    At the mo, I've only got the washing machine water going onto the lawn... Works a treat..

    When in the new house though, I'm planning something different.

    Not so this will all work and if any of the measures I will be going to will be of any benifit..

    ALL bathroom water (No not toilet) will run out through channel filled with gravel and reeds (or something that likes the water, something hardy any ideas ?) from here the slightly filtered water runs into a pond.. In the pond some water pot plants, and any really hardy fish is possible.. (This pond will be lined with black plasic and will situated in the orchard). I figure that if I level the pond so there is a shollow end and a deep end I will be able to get UV filtering at the shallow end and the little bad boys that don't like the light will be abel to fight it out in the deep end (will also shelter the deep end as so there is less sun light that end.) Have also though that I will probably install a small solar pump that will circlulate the water down something like a small little feature.

    Ducks will also share the pond and orchard, the overflow will be directed to the orchard trees.

    I also plan to put a little solar sub-pump that will be hooked up to a watering drip system around the orchard trees. (Ok so it is a mini orchard.. Hoping to get 2 avacardo, Lime, Orange and Lemon, and Mulberry.

    In times of exsive water (When family come to stay over - 5-6 showers a day etc) the water will be directed to the watermelons and pumpkins.


    Anyway... If anyone can pick holes in that theory please do... I would hate to do it and not work. :)

    Floot, how do you get the sink water to the garden?? I mean in a sense how do you keep it free from crap.. and little bits that make there way down the pipe ?
     
  3. Franceyne

    Franceyne Junior Member

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    We have a grey water system built into our house (we are not connected to the mains or sewage). The shower, bathroom sink, laundy tub, washing machine and kitchen sink all empty into a sump that then flows into an underground pipe greywater system under our (growing) orchard.

    :D
     
  4. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    We have dedicatd lines, showers drain to plants directly (outdoor showers), sinks to garden beds, washing machine to movable pipe to various plants, including large legume tree whose name I just blocked :oops: . This spreads the water around.

    Poster boy Baldcat, previously known as Dan the Man, and, um, before THAT known as Baldcat, no holes in your theory that I can see.

    Sounds really exciting! (Wheres the aquaponics :wav: system fit in?)

    C
     
  5. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    All our water oes into One tank and is pumped (when filled) out into the area that has my citrus trees garlic, grow nearby,but as only 2 of us not high water volumesget pumped to my trees.

    Tezza
     
  6. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    I don't have the luxury of being able to run tubing all over the place I rent, so I have a primitive greywater system. I have a bucket in the sink, and any water that isn't soapy or oily goes in the bucket, and I carry the water outside and water the plants.

    Leaning towards vegetarianism, and avoiding oily dishes, we can get away without using soap for most of our dishes. Sometimes, instead of soap we used the leftover starchy water from boiling noodles or pasta, or sometimes we use citrus peel. These will work well for olive or sesame oil, but for animal fat we need to use dish soap. Saves money, and keeps the greywater a little cleaner.

    Jonathan
     
  7. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    You can buy dish soap that says "low phosphate" or "phosphate free" too, right? or is that laundry detergent? Some soils actually benefit from a bit of soap though right?
    Um, I think this conversation was had on this forum about 2 years ago when I was posting under a different name...

    Our greywater here, from the bath and kitchen sink and washing machine all goes into a series of banana circles, the first one being a pit with water hyacinth growing in it... (reminds me, it is probably time to go and harvest some for mulch) - the rest, there's about four or five more pits I think, we filled with straw mulch. The bananas are all only about a year old, but they are growing really well. Not quite as well as the ones on the swale by the chicken coop, but still pretty good. And the water that flows out the end, when it does, isn't oily and dark like it often is at the beginning of the system.

    Elsewhere on the property there are a couple of outdoor showers. There isn't any greywater system for that, except a big old stand of pennisetum purpureum (cow cane) that is about 20 feet tall. I have been harvesting that lately, and running it through a chipper to smash all the nodes and neuter it, and then it makes great mulch. I like the idea that I am using some of the energy from my neighbours dead skin cells etc to plant out a new food forest!
     
  8. baldcat

    baldcat Junior Member

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    Old son... you could connect a hose to your washing machine..

    I rent at the mo and thats all I do,,, got sick of running around after the machine..
     
  9. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    BJ...


    I have cleaned out the pipe once in that time, I just flushed it... also have pulled up plants that look like invading and removed and replaced soggy mulch etc . Anything that comes out of there is composted...

    I always suspected this area might get yucky so I was never permanent about doing this... but we also then didnt mind 'wasting' water rinsing things.

    I like the sound of the system you plan. When I do eventually build a new house I will get something a lot more permanent and complex.. except for the washing machine.. that will have a hose jammed up the pump outlet and be dragged around the lawn.

    I have really considered some sort of sump for the new place although I am very undecided and will have a good fall away from the house to play with....

    Just on your plan.... I live tropical and pawpaw trees are the plant of choice stand on any drainage area/septic leach drain as they dont have huge root systems and are only semi-permanent. The chooks love them too!! They use huge amounts of water. No we dont eat the fruit from here.



    MJ
     
  10. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    ours goes to the vege gardens that's all of it kitchen, laundry, and bath plus we save our night water and that goes tot he vege' gardens as well.

    len :)
     
  11. ~Tullymoor~

    ~Tullymoor~ Junior Member

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    ~Night water ~ :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
     
  12. Tamandco

    Tamandco Junior Member

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    This is exactly what I've got planned for our grey water outlet! :D

    At the moment, it just runs down hill into the paddock. That's fine, nothing goes to waste cos the seepage from the wet area does benefit various things I've got planted around there, including my proposed perenial food forest. It presently gets a little boggy and encourages certain undesireable vegetation such as buttercup and what resembles the papyrus in my fish pond, but I don't think it's the same thing. The area also grows a coating of duckweed which the pony and cows love to nibble at.

    But

    what I'd like to do it to transform it such as your description making a type of dry creek bed, about 12 metres long, with the ability to 'filter' the water before ending up in what I'd like to be a rather large frog pond, about 5 metres across. This is why I'm really interested in Joel's Aquaponics system :wav: cos I'm pretty sure it could be adapted to this setup. I'm not too fussed with the area being productive, mainly just a way to filter the grey water, so it could be used for the pond. Any overflow from there could then be diverted into the vegies and the perenial food forest.

    That was my initial plan, but since discovering Joel's Aquaponics, :wav: I'm thinking that I might be able to introduce some fish too!!!! :lol: How good would that be?!!! The only problem would be a means of reticulating the water! Joel, I'll be ordering your book etc for xmas! :D

    This is interesting. We eat a lot of rice which is very starch. Could that be used too?

    Tam
     
  13. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    RF,

    You're probably ignoring me, so maybe someone else can pass this to you:

    I saw an interesting system at Escuela Agriculture Region Tropico Humida (EARTH, Humid Tropic Region Ahgricultural School) in Costa Rica, where they had a biogas plant from a piggery, and the outflow from the plant went through a constructed wetlands.

    Now, biogas effluent is not anything nice, ugh, even if all the potential pathogens are dead (which is, in my opinion a big if), the stuff still smells, and the pigs are, well, right over there, the shit goes in the tube, biogas come out in a pipe, the effluent comes out...

    The constructed wetland they used included various reeds (and I'm sorry, I wrote down the species names but this was a few years ago), and water hyacinth, which grew very well in the wtlands, and being high protein was suitable for animal fodder, which they fed back to the pigs, and to their impressive goat dairy.

    They also used the water hyacinth and reeds for mulch and composting.

    They claimed that the biogas plant effluent at about 20 meters from the outlet pipe was clean enough to drink as the water moving through the system moved at a slow pace, but I noticed none of the instructors was willing to try a sip when I asked.....

    However, having said that, the water looked very clean, and also had no smell, and I did put my hands into the water, as did all the other participants.

    There was another thread a few months ago that covered this topic in some detail.

    C
     
  14. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    RF,

    You're probably ignoring me, so maybe someone else can pass this to you:

    I saw an interesting system at Escuela Agriculture Region Tropico Humida (EARTH, Humid Tropic Region Ahgricultural School) in Costa Rica, where they had a biogas plant from a piggery, and the outflow from the plant went through a constructed wetlands.

    Now, biogas effluent is not anything nice, ugh, even if all the potential pathogens are dead (which is, in my opinion a big if), the stuff still smells, and the pigs are, well, right over there, the shit goes in the tube, biogas come out in a pipe, the effluent comes out...

    The constructed wetland they used included various reeds (and I'm sorry, I wrote down the species names but this was a few years ago), and water hyacinth, which grew very well in the wtlands, and being high protein was suitable for animal fodder, which they fed back to the pigs, and to their impressive goat dairy.

    They also used the water hyacinth and reeds for mulch and composting.

    They claimed that the biogas plant effluent at about 20 meters from the outlet pipe was clean enough to drink as the water moving through the system moved at a slow pace, but I noticed none of the instructors was willing to try a sip when I asked.....

    However, having said that, the water looked very clean, and also had no smell, and I did put my hands into the water, as did all the other participants.

    There was another thread a few months ago that covered this topic in some detail.

    C
    _________________
    Maya Mountain Research Farm
    San Pedro Columbia, Toledo, BELIZE, Central America
    Promoting food security through stacked polycultures and applied biodiversity

    https://www.mmrfbz.org
     
  15. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Oh, they probably just weren't thirsty, Christopher... :roll: :lol:
     
  16. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Um, yes, that MUST have been it... :lol:

    Thanks for passing on the public service announcement!

    C
     
  17. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    I recently got a manual from a Dr paul Range on how to build a methane digester from a 55 gallon black plastic drum, a toilet seat and a couple of other bits...

    I then watched a DVD where he demonstrated the construction and spoke about operating and plumbing up the system. Towards the top of the 55 gallon drum there was the high level water outlet, where water flowed out of the system regularly as water was added to the system from urine and cups of water for 'flushing'.

    This 'water' that flowed out went straight into half drums with watercress and duck weed growing in them.. After cascading through a few of these drums the water goes straight into his aquaponics system, and all of the watercress and duck weed grown in the drums gets fed to his fish in the aquaponics system as well... :oops:
     
  18. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    I wouldn't be too worried about feeding the plant matter to chooks, though I don't think I would run the water, or feed the plants into an aquatic system..

    It is an interesting thought, I can't find much info about whether the bacteria enters into a plant, I don't imagine that it would live and reproduce in plant tissue. E-coli can't penetrate a 0.45 micron filter, but I can't find much info about the size or pores in plant roots, to know if they can pass through, though they would certainly be on the roots.

    Of course it's not just the plants that are filtering the water, the plant growth encourages habitats for other beneficial bacterias and bugs which destroy the E-coli and use the nutrients within the water....

    mmmmm, further research required...... :?
     

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