Hello, all...

I live in Southern California and would like resources (online or otherwise) that address water conservation. I'm very interested in building a home that utilizes gray water and perhaps has the ability to collect and store rain water as well.

I recall a Dwell article within the past 18 months (the couple lived in Texas and had triplets) that included a schematic for how their home conserved water, and I believe that their solution involved a complex septic tank system as well.

Thank you!

Start at [url href=http://oasisdesign.net/]Oasis Design[/url].

Art Ludwig (the proprietor of the web site) has published three small books on designing and using gray water systems; they're inexpensive and very useful. You can get them directly through the web site, or at a discount from Amazon.com, etc.

-Steve

I have recently added a new Gray Water company to my site. They are called Lokus GrayWater and they look pretty decent (although their site does look quite basic).

Follow this link:

http://www.prefabdirectory.com/_sgg/m6_1.htm

click on the link for Gray Water if you are interested in finding out what Gray Water is all about.

Regards,

David
Founder - The Prefab Directory
http://prefabdirectory.com

My septic tank was being strained by a laundry water discharge. My solution was to dig a hole 6 ft deep, lined the bottom with rock and put a plastic 55 gal barrel upside down. Into the bottom of the barrel,(now the upside), I ran a 2 plastic line from my waster. The slope was sufficient to ensure water flowed completely out.

However, after a year of use, my improvised drain won't discharge the water and the pipe backs up when the washer pumps out water. I was planning on putting a branch line going out from the barrel using a gravel bed a couple feet underground and a perforated plastic pipe.

Reading about gray water systems, I understand that laundry water has too much suspended junk and it will quickly clog up a system meant to discharge it. This obviously seems to be my case. Now, I am wondering if my branch line in will be a waste.

I live in the midest near lake michigan. My soil is sandy and ground water for sprinkling is only about 28 feet below the surface. This is not water for drinking. For those people who have drinking water wells, they are deep wells, (80' +). My drinking water is from a municipal line but I do have a shallow well pump for sprinkling the grass.

Does anyone know of a sucessfull approach to discharging this gray water?

Thanks


:wacko:

The problem with washing machine lint is that our clothing these days contains a lot of synthetic fiber, which is not biodegradable. So once the lint gets stuck in every nook and cranny, it stays there forever.

There are a number of washing machine filters that you can get (do a Google search on washing machine filter ). They range in price from very inexpensive (less than $20) to moderately expensive ($150 or so). I don't know if their effectiveness scales with price, though.

I also recommend the web site and books that I mentioned above for optimizing your gray water design.

-Steve