Greywater Recycling.

[devilinblack]

I was just curious if anyone here has a system in place for capturing and recycling greywater from their house.

I've often contemplated how much water goes down the drain when washing dishes or showering, but since I live in a single story slab foundation home, capturing it seemed unrealistic without a bunch of work and money.

Today I was reading something that mentioned laundry greywater. I don't know how I overlooked this, but this should be a piece of cake to recycle and use for watering my lawn. The washer already pumps the water up to greater than the height of a 55 gallon drum, and my laundry room used to be the back porch at one time anyway. Why not use some PVC to run the output of the washer over to a 55 gallon drum that stores the water, then use a hose to run the water outside for watering the lawn? The only downside I can see is that I'd likely need a way to flush any sediment build up out of the barrel occasionally and of course I won't have great water pressure for using a regular sprinkler, but that could be overcome with building some sort of mobile drip system for watering the grass since I don't have in-ground sprinklers anyway.

Any thoughts?

[nick]

Depending on what's in your laundry detergent, your lawn may or may not like it.

[HK4113]

You would be surprised at how much water you use from the shower, doing dishes, and your laundry. Growing up we drained our laundry machine into the backyard next to a row of trees and they flourished without a problem from the soap. The soil will filter out a lot of the suds, so that when the water reaches the roots below it will be pretty well filtered.

[Chaparral]

I set up a rudimentary grey water system in 07. It feeds a monstrous grape vine and a large shade tree. Im going to reroute it towards a bunch of fruit trees when im done remodeling.

[paul0660]

The water can quickly stink if you store it, and lawns take a lot of water. My showers are plumbed to a GW gravity setup for some trees and shrubs. That amount might do a couple hundred sq feet of lawn, but I am a sprinkler type and don't want to mess with filters and pressurization.

[mcmski]

They make special lawn friendly soap for a grey water system (http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress...dry-detergent/ as an example I'm not endorsing it or anything)

You should also set it up so you can still divert the water down the drain when you want to use bleach. Bleach is much less lawn friendly than soap.

I haven't set it up myself, but I know a few people who run grey water systems and it is on my list of things to do when I do eventually buy a house so I'm not claiming to be an expert.

[wheels]

One idea

I saw this a while back and thought it was a really good idea.

[1 SIG fan]

^. Whoa. Gives a whole new meaning to upper decker or a top tanker...