Grey water reuse?

linedog · Feb 23, 2006

My wife wants to start reusing our greywater from the bathroom sinks and showers. She wants to use this to flush the toilets, she saw a system on the web somewhere. Is it ok to use it and is it worth the trouble? Thanks and this is a great site I wish I found it sooner.

hj · Feb 24, 2006

gray water

You can't just "start using gray water". The drain system has to be setup to divert that water to a holding tank, and then a pump installed to supply it to the toilets through a separate set of pipes. None of this is in place, or easy to install, in most homes.

Sponsor · 2022-01-29T12:20:58-0800

Gary Swart · Feb 24, 2006

I wonder if it's even legal!

linedog · Feb 24, 2006

We were looking at puting it in a new house we are building. So that way it could be plumbed from the start. Good question I don't know if it's legal or not.

Master Plumber Mark · Feb 24, 2006

grey water is a waste of time

that is a total waste of time and certanly moe trouble
what it would ever be worth...

do you really want to be going to the bathroom
looking down at rather foul smelly water in your toilet bowl??

I doubt that guests would find it appealing

Heres a better idea...

Instead of grey water , why not install a 2000gal systern in the
back yard and collect rainwater off of your roof
and pump that to all the toilets???

that was done 100 years ago and worked fine..

and it would actually work like a back up reserve of water
in case of emergency too.......

Jadnashua · Feb 24, 2006

If you make your cistern big enough, you could use it to water the lawn, too. Course, if you lived in a place like Tucson, AZ, you probably wouldn't get enough rain to do anything.

hj · Feb 25, 2006

gray water

Gary Swart said:
I wonder if it's even legal!

As long as the two systems are isolated, it is. Catalina Island uses ocean water for toilet flushing. In the dark you can see the sparkles from the tiny sea creatures.

Master Plumber Mark · Feb 25, 2006

Seems like a lot of trouble

My dog drinks from the toilet bowl...
drinking sea-water would probably make him sick..

drinking grey water might be bad on him too

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I cant immagine having to pipe two water systems into a home
from the city

the municiple water comapny and the TAX expence to pipe two
water systems throughout a city....thats just got to be a big
expence.... that very few communities would never pay for.....

plus the possibility of cross connnections?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

unless you are in the desert, it would seem cheaper to either just
dig a shallow well or dig a systern...

or -----if you are really a nut,
install a tank at the end of your septic finger system
and pipe that filtered water back into the house to flush
your toilets......now thats really stretching your water-----

the large cost simply outweighs the advantages
if their are any....to any of these pipe dreams......

Dunbar Plumbing · Feb 25, 2006

I would hate lay a pile of #2's into the toilet and wander if the splash-up from the water in the bowl would be safe. Now imagine gray water sitting in a tank fermenting till the next flush. We all know how mold growth is common in tanks already. I can imagine what the harm could be.

I would be more inclined to use groundwater collected from a sump pump in my basement if I didn't have any neighbors or tobacco fields close by. Less of a chance of harm being done but I'll stick to treated water. Can't save the world or on the bill enough to justify a system that can do the proper treatment before introducing it back into use for humans.

Gary Swart · Feb 25, 2006

I think there are probably lots of other ways to save the earth than using gray water in the potty.

Demark · Feb 27, 2006

Gary Swart said:
I think there are probably lots of other ways to save the earth than using gray water in the potty.

LEED would tend to disagree with you as this is precisely specified in one of the WE Credits.

SteveW · Feb 27, 2006

demark said:
LEED would tend to disagree with you as this is precisely specified in one of the WE Credits.

Huh???????

Demark · Mar 1, 2006

SteveW said:
Huh???????

LEED is a certification that your building meets certain "green building" standards. The certification level is determined by the number of "credits" - the more credits you have, the higher the certification. One of the credits is "Water Efficiency", which includes grey water reuse.

Master Plumber Mark · Mar 2, 2006

LEE has got to be nuts

Well if they are giving credits to
re-use your grey water , it better be a pretty
BIG, BG credit...or is simply wont be feasable.....

they gave huge credits out for SOLAR panels
back inthe 80s to jump start that industry
and when it all ran out in 1990
the solar industry went belly up...

Southern Man · Jul 14, 2008

Hereâ€™s a system for re-using sink water to flush a toilet. It claims to save about 10 gallons/ person per day.

http://www.watersavertech.com/AQUS-Water-Conservation.html

I have a client that has a failing septic system. The system has been repaired twice before, he's run out of "repair area" and is currently using a leach bed built by one of the best installers in the area. It will take between 50-75% of the water he uses in his 3 bedroom house, and the rest is comes up to the surface. I figure I need to reduce his water use by about 120-160 gallons per day, or come up with another way of disposal.

Normally I could use two buried single-pass sand filters in series to treat the septic tank effluent, chlorinate, de-chlorinate, aerate, then dump it to a creek. Except the creek is classified as zero-flow so the State won't allow this unless I look at all other possible alternatives.

Funny rules that we have here- if I separate out grey water and use to water his lawn and shrubs I have to treat it well beyond the simple sand filter scheme above. A multi-pass sand filter wonâ€™t do it either. Iâ€™m thinking that Iâ€™ll have to go off the shelf, high tech. Does anyone have experience with a unit that can do this?

Redwood · Jul 14, 2008

Here is an interesting read from Water & Waste Water News.

The first case study in the article is the Westbrook Factory Outlet Mall just a few miles down the road from my house. In Westbrook, CT. there is no municipal sewer system. Here they installed a waste treatment system that provides "Recycled" water AKA "Blue Water" to flush all the toilets and urinals in the mall.

It saves about 13,000,000 gallons a year!

http://www.wwn-online.com/articles/51364/

This was the first project of its nature in the State of Connecticut.

Bob NH · Jul 14, 2008

Assume 6 flushes per person at 1.6 gallons per flush = 9.6 gallons per day per person. You can probably get enough from a daily shower to do that, so maybe you save 10 gallons per day per person, 3650 gallons per year. In my community the cost of water and sewer is about $8 per 1000 gallons, so the saving is about $30 per year per person.

For a 2-person household you may save $60 per year; $30 to pay the debt service on $300 and $30 to pay for maintenance and operation of the system.

I am a DIYer and an engineer who would consider such things and have concluded that it is not worth the effort and cost.

Mikey · Jul 15, 2008

Bob NH said:
I am a DIYer and an engineer who would consider such things and have concluded that it is not worth the effort and cost.

That's because water doesn't cost enough.

"Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it without restraint because it has not been priced properly." -- Lord Stern, the World Bank's former chief economist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/05/ccwater105.xml

Southern Man · Jul 15, 2008

Bob NH said:
.... it is not worth the effort and cost.

By itself it surely ain't. And the AQUS system does not appear to be legal under the ICC Plumbing Code, Appendix C.

Redwood · Jul 17, 2008

At the mall project I cited above you would not know it was "recyled" except all the toilets and urinals flushed with "Smurf Water",,,

No junk floating in it.

Grey water reuse?

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