Grey water usage

[myheaven]

How do you use your grey water?

Thank you to everyone here who has had such wonderful Ideas on how to use used water we now save alot.

Now how do you all reuse your water?

We keep the plug in while we have showers and scoop out the water and put it in buckets or a clean garbage can and use it to water the plants, garden and lawn. We are going to diver the water from the sinks and washer also to water our way to big(my opinion) lawn. we catch rain water also to water the garden and lawn. We filter the rain water to use to make soap.

If its yellow let it mellow if its umm you know flush it down. we have 7 people so we flush alot. 2-3 gallons per flush.

We do have a dish washer and it only uses 2.5 gallons of water to wash ALOT of dishes and I use temp boost to heat the water. It really does save energy.

What is more ways to reuse?

[SolarGary]

Hi,

This web site has a lot of good material on using greywater:
http://www.oasisdesign.net/greywater...asis/index.htm

I have the book he sells, and its also very good -- very practical.
One thing he reccommends is not to use greywater to water lawns for health reasons -- especially with kids. Watering trees, the garden, ... is all fine.
He describes a nice system that uses all gravity flow, needs no filters (which nobody wants to clean out), no pumps, and introduces the greywater into "mulch basins" in the area you want to water.

Sounds like your toilets might want to be upgraded -- the new ones use 1.5 gallons per flush.

Gary

[Obser]

It is possible to divert gray water (sink, bath, washer outflow) and keep it separate from toilet waste. RVs do that as a standard practice. Converting existing plumbing waste water systems in a standard dwelling can be difficult and local "codes" may deem it illegal to discharge gray water anywhere but into a sewer or septic system.

It might be wise to do a "cost / benefit analysis" -- identify exactly the benefit that is expected and the cost to accomplish that objective in terms of time, energy and money.

If the objective is to water a lawn and perhaps to feel conservative, expending a lot of time, energy and money that could be more effectively used otherwise might not make a lot of sense.

[myheaven]

as soon as we get the money we will be upgrading all water and energy sucking appliances.

thank you for the site

[donsgal]

Originally Posted by myheaven

How do you use your grey water?

Thank you to everyone here who has had such wonderful Ideas on how to use used water we now save alot.

Now how do you all reuse your water?

We keep the plug in while we have showers and scoop out the water and put it in buckets or a clean garbage can and use it to water the plants, garden and lawn. We are going to diver the water from the sinks and washer also to water our way to big(my opinion) lawn. we catch rain water also to water the garden and lawn. We filter the rain water to use to make soap.

If its yellow let it mellow if its umm you know flush it down. we have 7 people so we flush alot. 2-3 gallons per flush.

We do have a dish washer and it only uses 2.5 gallons of water to wash ALOT of dishes and I use temp boost to heat the water. It really does save energy.

What is more ways to reuse?

You need to use your grey water as soon as you make it. If you keep it stored even 24 hours it becomes a stinking, fetid mess - not to mention ripe with pathogens.

We will be using our grey water to water fruit trees and flowers at our homestead. We're not sure what to do about it in the winter, though, when it's freezing outside.

donsgal

[myheaven]

so far the only water I have stored is the rain water and have been useing all the bath water up as soon as the baths are done.

I think im going to get the book solar gary is talking about.