Ben's DIY Graywater System
 

For a while, I have been thinking about some sort of graywater system.

My house uses a "holding tank", which is just to say that the waste-water from the house goes into a 2000 gallon tank buried in the backyard.

A holding tank is much cheaper to instal, but much more expensive to maintain in the long-run. That's because you have to pay somebody to empty it every time it's full.

It costs about $90 to empty. How often? Well, at my house it's about every 5 or 6 weeks. That means water cost more than gas or electricity at my house, which also means it should be a priority on my EcoRenovating.

(And no, please do not start a discussion about getting a septic tank or municipal sewer at my house. Septic tank would have to be above ground, cost about $15,000 and literally take up my entire back yard. Municipal sewer is not available, and even if it was, still costs money, although less than what I currently pay!)

Anyways, what seems to make sense is one of two things (or both!).
1) Run water to someplace other than the holding tank. (The yard or garden for example.)
or
2) Reuse the water inside the house before running it down the drain.

I really don't want sudsy bubbles in my side yard, and the garden is pretty far away - uphill, so lets focus on option 2.

Both of these options are considered "graywater" - water which has been used, but could still be used again for, say, watering plants. This is different from "blackwater" which is what goes down the drain from the toilet.

Speaking of toilets, that would be a great place to SEND graywater. Why do we flush our toilets with perfectly good drinking water? That doesn't make sense!

Instead, why not use water doing down the drain of the sink, the shower, or someplace else to fill the toilet tank?

I have kept kicking around the idea of using waste shower water to feed the toilet. I take a shower every day.....I use the toilet every day.....It makes sense. Both are right near each other.

HOWEVER! I am limited in space. My house is over a concrete enclosed crawl-space. (Think a full basement, which is only 22 inches tall!) That leaves me little room for a basement water tank or ease of accessing any sort of filter system.

Today, it dawned on me that the clothes washer would make a better option for a graywater source to feed the toilet.

Here's why:
Crawl space access is 2 feet away from the washer.
Laundry drain is VERY easily accessable
Water storage tank could be located in laundry room instead of in crawl-space.
Laundry puts out rather "clean" dirty water - no chunks of bar soap or long hairs!

The only real disadvantage is that the laundry room is farther away from the toilet than the shower is. But that's not a big deal, it just means I need more pipe. I think the extra expense of 20' of small-diameter pipe is worth it.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...C06976/web.jpg
In the above photo, you can see that there is some space between the utility tub (on the right) and the clothes washer (in the middle)
There's still about 8" between the the washer and the dryer (on the left.)

If I moved the washer as far to the left as I could, I think the space between the utility tub and the washer is big enough to hold a custom water tank. The washer uses about 20 gallons per load. I think I could fit a 40 gallon tank in, but maybe not a 60. How big is a gallon? I might have to do some 3-dimensional math to figure out how many gallons fit in a space 30 inches deep by 30 inches tall by X wide.

The downside to this is that we DO shower every day, but we do NOT do laundry every day! Still, that would mean that all the water we use for laundry would be "free" as it saves us from flushing other water down the toilet drain!

Please expect this project to be "long-term", as I still need to Ecomod my electric car to 144 volts, convert my pickup truck to bio-diesel, build my wife a greenhouse, get off gasoline and corn syrup........ The list goes on! :eek:

All positive ideas and comments welcome.

-Ben


PS: Also in the photo, you can see the trap door that allows me access to the crawl-space. That's the only way to get under the floor to work on plumbing or anything else I would build down there.

I think a greywater system would be perfect for your situation. Your idea is also pretty good IMO. The washer will fill up the tank you have in the laundry room. If its full, overflow would go to your holding tank. Then, I'd setup a switching system inside the toilet with the float to turn on a pump that would pump water into the toilet tank after it is flushed. Pretty simple setup and not too expensive either.

I found a nice Grey Water resource with several examples of DIY grey water systems. There is also a grey water system selection chart which lists pros and cons of various system designs.

FWIW,
Tim

1 cubic foot is 1728 cubic inches
the 30" by 30" space is 900 cubic inches per inch of width
1 cubic foot is about 7.5 gallons

So... every 2 inches of width would be about 7.5 gallons, or 3.75 gallons per inch
The picture looks like over a foot of space to be had... or around 40 gallons, like your guesstimate.

Grey water
 

Grey water is inclined to smell, therefore it needs to be cleaned up before use, running it through a sand box, then pumping it up to the top of the garden, will loose most of it in evaporation and absorption. such that is left will merely make its way down hill and disappear.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12369563240001

Here you can see the laundry machines pulled away from the wall. The washer has two black hoses supplying hot and cold water to the washer. The black "bendy" pipe going to the wall is the waste-water output pipe. It simply hooks down into a drain pipe built into the wall.

In the background you can see the natural gas supply line to the dryer and the air exhaust pipe out through the wall. That had a bad air leak there, so I sealed and insulated the connection to the wall before pushing the dryer back.

Here,
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12369563400001
you can see the washer exhaust hose just hooked onto the utility tub. The fact that the washer has a simple hose like this makes the plumbing a little easier.

With the counter-top removed and the dryer hose insulated, I then pushed both laundry machines over as far as I could (and still be able to open the doors!) and was left with just under 17 inches between the dryer and the utility tub.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12369563700001

That's great, because 16 inches tends to be a "standard" size for manufactured items. I may be able to find some sort of industrial bin that's 16 inches wide.

The space of 16"W by 28" deep by 34" high would be about 60 gallon capacity. That's 3 loads of laundry.

My toilet is marked as "1.6 gallons per flush", but it also has a brick in it, and is rigged only to flush as long as the handle is held down, so you can vary water usage depending on #1 or #2.

At 1.6 gal/flush the graywater tank would hold 37 flushes!


I like the idea of controlling a pump with the float in the toilet tank. That would be pretty simple - pump water when the toilet needs it, stop the pump when it's full!

I still don't know what kind of pump or pressure device might be needed to make this really work. Any suggestions on that?

An overflow for the graywater tank would be easy as well, because I could just route that to the utility tub.

Anyone have a 16 by 28 by 34 (or taller, to be cut down) container? Know of what container may fit that bill?



PS - In terms of routing graywater to the garden or other outdoor use, the garden is pretty far away, uphill, and I am in Wisconsin, so I wouldn't be able to use the system in the winter, as it would just freeze. One great thing about re-using graywater inside the house is that it doesn't freeze!

At first glance I thought it would be easy to get a pump for this situation. I imagine you'd prefer an ac (vs dc) pump for this application? Shurflo is the first thing that came to mind. This would probably work, but it's a little more expensive than I had thought it would be at $130. It flows 3.3 GPM which would mean your tank would fill in about 20 something seconds. That seems like a long time to me.

Or here's another one which should fill your tank in ~12 seconds for about the same price.

Maybe you should get an expected fill time to work with that will help you determine the flow rate of pump you'll need.

That FloJet Quad looks like a pretty decent pump. I would prefer AC, as I have no PV electric at my house. (Although I could run a DC pump off a DC adapter if I found a really good deal on a DC pump)

I like the idea of a pump with a built in pressure on/off switch. That would mean that I wouldn't have to do any work with a switch in the toilet running off the float or anything like that.

I guess RV pumps work in a similar fashion. I know a guy who is an RV mechanic, and may be able to get one through him.

Well, I have played around a little more with a "mock-up" graywater system.

I had a 30 gallon barrel in my laundry room, which the output from the washer goes to.

In the barrel, I dropped in a submersible "power-head" pump from an aquarium, connected to a garden hose. A powerhead is the exact size to fit into the cut-tube-end of a garden hose in case you were ever wondering.

The other end of the hose went right into the top of the toilet (with the lid removed), held in place by an Eco-Clamp. (Green-handled spring-clamp)

The pump was connected to wall power through a remote on/off switch, sold as an easy way to turn your X-mas lights on and off in the winter.


So:
Use the toilet.
Flush.
Press the button to turn on the pump.
Watch the toilet tank fill up with graywater.
Press the button to turn off the pump.

Go do something else until you have to use the toilet again, then come back and repeat.

After looking at how a typical well-fed plumbing system works. I think I will do something similar.

Have a pump that turns on and off with a pressure switch. Use a small pressure tank. The pressure tank will feed water to the toilet, and the pump will automatically turn on and off only as needed. I think I just need a check valve in there somewhere!

This is very similar to how the power brakes on my electric car work! :thumbup:


Can anyone tell me what the difference between a Pressure Tank and a Thermal Expansion Tank is? I can get a 2-gallon Thermal Expansion tank for $5! Sounds like a pressure tank to me!

I bought the 2 gallon pressure tank, a 1/2 HP Shallow Well Jet Pump, a cartridge filter, pressure gauge, check valve, and lots of little connections to make everything fit together.

For my line to run to the toilet, I bought 25' of 1/2" PEX plastic water line.

It's light and flexy, which is great, because my crawl-space has such limited access, that it would be hard to fit 10' sections of rigid pipe down there.

I spent WAY too much time at the store, until I finally found the old guy who knows how to do everything, and knows where everything in the store is.

So, right now, I have the pump, filter, and pressure tank all hooked up to each other, with some garden hose feeding it from a 30 gallon barrel.

The other end of the PEX is just looped back to the barrel for testing.

I still need to borrow a ceramic drill bit from my friend who is a tile-layer. My toilet is against an outside wall, so the existing water line comes up through the floor right behind it.

I plan to drill a second hole through the tile to feed the 1/2 PEX through. Then, I will be able to hook either line water or graywater to the toilet.

One of the segments of pipe is leaking - I must have wrapped the teflon tape the wrong direction or something.

I have the system working.

Right now, the PEX runs across the hallway, from the utility room, down the hall, straight to the toilet.

It's just set up like this to test out first. I don't have a drill bit that will go through tile, so I will do that when I get the tile bit and a little more time.

Overall, it seems to work pretty well. I think my pressure tank is a little undersized. That's only 2 gallons, and I think my toilet tank is more than that. Perhaps I can store more pressure with a length of 4" PVC pipe with end caps on it.

The pump runs for about 25 seconds when I do a full flush of the toilet tank. The pump internally has a pressure switch which kicks on at 30 psi and off at 50 psi.

For some reason, I have a leak between the 3/4" to 1&1/4" adapter, and the 1&1/4" pipe going into the pump. It looks like they are straight on to each other, so I don't think they are cross threaded. I used teflon tape (wrapped the right direction!)

Not sure why it's leaking. Maybe I just need to buy a new set of adapters and start over!?

Sounds great Ben. Where are our pics??? :D

Any estimates on how many gallons of flushing this will save you?

All of them.




Photos are coming.

Let me rephrase that. How many gallons a day/week/month?

That's a bit difficult to quantify because:
Unlike municipal water supply houses, I have no water meter.
My toilet uses varying amounts of water depending on how long you hold down the flush handle.

So, the best way to measure is actually going to be based on how often the 2000 gallon holding tank has to be emptied, then compare that to the frequency of tank emptying before the graywater system.


So, I basically got the system up and running last night. I am still running off a "temporary graywater tank", but the system is complete otherwise.

On to the photo show!

To see the entire photo album of graywater system construction go here: MobileMe Gallery

To start with, I bought a big pile of stuff from the store.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381639820001
The expensive part was the shallow well jet pump. It was $140, but it produces plenty of pressure, is big and fast, and leaves me lots of room to expand my system.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381640160001

I also bought a basic water filter system, to keep laundry dirt from clogging my pressure tank and toilet valve, and a 2 gallon pressure tank. ($5 on clearance!) 25' of 1/2 inch PEX plastic water line was nice and inexpensive. I can also snake it around through the crawl space however I want, without having to solder in 90 degree elbows!

I started off by assembling the pump and filter system. Later, I figured out that the one-way trap valve would have to go between the two, so I would have to pull it apart, add that, and put it all back together.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381640740001

The pump comes with a built-in pressure switch, which turns the pump on at 30 psi and off at 50 psi, but it does NOT come with a power cord.
I cut off the female end of a spare computer power supply cable, and connected it to the power under the cover of the pump. Some pumps are 120v/240v switchable. This smaller pump was 120V only, so no worries about getting it wrong.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381641560001

My Laundry/Utility room is really more of a walk-in closet than anything. The only place you can stand is the trap door, which is the access to the crawl-space.

I connected the pump to the pressure tank with a "tank-T", a cast brass connection with several different outputs of various sizes. That makes it real easy to add a pressure gauge, prime the pump, connect the PEX, and leave room for future expansion.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381641720001

I have one bathroom in the house, and the toilet is on an outside wall. That means the water supply comes straight up through the tile floor to the toilet.

Rather than connect valves and a T under the crawl-space, where it is very hard to get at, and tight working space because of the toilet drain, I am simply going to run the graywater line right up through the floor behind the toilet as well. Later, I can add valves on the 1/2" lines behind the toilet to conveniently switch from graywater to line water as needed.

How do I drill through tile? Good thing I have a friend who is a tile-layer. He loaned me a porcelain bit, which is basically a diamond hole-saw.

I decided where I wanted to drill, checked to make sure I wouldn't hit anything below, and then started drilling with the tile wetted with a sponge.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381642790001

It took a while, but made a very nice, clean, hole. I did still manage a chip out of the tile right at the end. I think it actually may have happened when I pulled the drill out! Oh well, a few daubs of white paint will fix that.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381643130001

Now through the tile, I used a 5/8" spade blade to drill through the wood of the floor.

That done, I crawled into the space below and fed the 1/2" PEX up through.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381643370001

The 1/2" to toilet connection then just slides right onto it. The PEX connections are really easy to work with.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381643630001

Here's what the pump looks like in the crawl-space.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381644050001
It's 20 inches from the concrete floor to the floor supports. The section down the middle of the house has the big heating vent, which comes down another 8". I can just squeeze under that on a mechanics creeper.

Waste-water from the washing machine has been re-routed to a sump-pump hose.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381644370001

This feeds over to a big black barrel, which supplies water to the pump by garden hose.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12381644560001

Obviously, this is not the ideal setup. For one thing, the trapdoor has to be open at least a little for the garden hose to run through. Both hoses run through the walking area. Also, the washer discharge puts out rather high pressure. I had to squeeze the washer hose and sump-pump extension hose together as hard as I could during the rinse cycle just to keep water from spraying everywhere! The final version of this will have some sort of nice glued, high-pressure, pipe to connect to the graywater storage.

So, still to do is:
Design and build a real graywater holding tank.
Make it automatically discharge to regular drain line if tank is full.
Have a way to monitor how full the graywater tank is.
Make sure there is always water in it so I don't have to re-prime the pump.
Look to expanding system to possibly include shower waste water?

I'll post some more as I work on any of those things.

Filter clog!
 

I can't believe the filter clogged up already!

I have had the graywater system running for less than a day, when the pump started running without stop.

I checked the pressure guage, and sure enough, the gauge was LOW, and the pump was cranking away.

I pulled the filter cartridge out, and it did look all linted up.

Mostly, I just was too keep anything from going through that will gunk up my pressure tank, shut off valve, or toilet valve.

I put the filter unit back together, WITHOUT, the actual filter, and everything runs great again!

Maybe I just need to replace the stock filter with a course one so that it only filters out the big stuff.

Is the garden hose pulling water from the top, bottom, or middle of the barrel? Perhaps moving it around will pickup less lint?

Looking forward to a finished system. It looks great so far. :)

My mom's laundry room is set up much the same Ben.
The difference being, Her washing machine discharges into the utility basin.
My dad used to tie an old sock around the outlet hose to keep lint from plugging the drain in the basin. One flooded basement was all it took for him to figure out how to prevent further mishaps.
Perhaps you could use a sock or some other method for catching the lint at the end of the discharge hose, before it gets to the main filter and pump?
S.

More Advances on the system!
 

Did a little more work on it.

I bought a 30 gallon rectangular garbage can. It fits neatly under the counter, allowing everything to be on one side of the room. It has a much smaller capacity than the black barrel did, but I can actually open the door all the way now!

I drilled a 7/8ths" hole in the floor behind the washer, and ran the garden hose down through it. Now I can close the trap door. Yea! Almost a normal room again!

No more tripping on the partly open door and falling in a hole!

I am running a load of laundry right now. I expect the waste-water of one load to fill the garbage can about 2/3rds full.

That means that I can't do two loads of laundry in a row. It might be good for one load of laundry every other night.

A larger holding tank in the crawl space would eliminate the capacity restriction, but then I also need to design a way to switch to the regular drain if the graywater is full, and also have a way to add line water if there isn't any graywater left.

As it is right now, I can always add fresh water to the garbage can with a short section of hose connected to the utility tub just to the right of the garbage can.

So far, the system is passing the WIFE TEST.
My wife uses the bathroom, and there is nothing "weird" about it. She's happy, and will be happier the farther we can put off our next water bill.

Here's the trash can neatly tucked under the counter.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12382856250001

Here, you can see both the black discharge hose from the washer, and the green garden hose running through a new hole in the floor to feed the graywater pump.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12382856640001

Here's both hoses in the garbage can.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12382856780001

The garden hose pulls water from near the bottom of the can. That way it doesn't quit sucking when the can is still 1/4-full of water. The end of the hose is about 2 inches from the bottom.

I think a "sock" or something over the end of the discharge hose isn't a bad idea. It's simple, and still easy to access.

As a kid at my parents house, we always had the discharge hose going to the utility tub, but all that had to happen was to get a sock or t-shirt dropped into the tub and it wouldn't drain! I can't tell you how many times we flooded the basement because of that!

While it isn't living space beneith my laundry room, I still don't want to repeat that!

Er, I thing you mean liters, not gallons. At least that's what it looks like in the pictures. I have the same GE/Kenmore/$BRAND washing machine and IIRC, it's rated to use 18-22 liters per load. Strangely, I think I also have the same plastic bucket.

Nope I mean gallons. The garbage can is three feet tall, two feet across and 16 inches wide. There's not much scale in the photo, it does kinda look small from the angle I can take the photo from.

Everything is bigger here in the U.S., which, unfortunately means a lot more waste.

The washer and dryer are both White/Westinghouse brand with the washer being a Frigidaire, a name brand of the Westinghouse manufacturer.

It is still VERY hard to find water usage of appliances here in the U.S. Electric appliances always have listed their rough electric use, and natural gas appliance have their gas use listed as well, but water appliances almost NEVER have their water usage listed!

It would not surprise me at all if Canadian appliances used less water than U.S. appliances, just as European and Japanese appliances do.

Today is Tuesday morning.

Saturday night, I did one load of laundry. The graywater from that wash has just run out right now.

Being able to run the toilet for 2+ days for free off laundry water doesn't sound too bad. I would think this would be even better during the week when we are home less often.

Also, I think I have been flushing the toilet more and longer than I would usually just to test everything out.

If I eventually connect the shower to the graywater system, I will need a much larger graywater storage tank. Then, the problem won't be too much graywayter, but rather, WHEN I have to pump away the extra!

I added a "lint-sock" to both the discharge hose of the washing machine AND the garden hose intake to the pump.

By no means has the lint been a problem at all so far, but I figure that if I can keep some of the bigger bits of it from going through, I should.

I'll check those lint traps after the next few loads of laundry and see how they are doing.

The lint sock on the output of the washer seems to help.

It does not good on the intake garden hose, because It just gets sucked in and gunked up, so I took that one off.

Overall, the system seems to be working well, other than the garbage can only holds about one laundry load worth of water.

That means, do a load of laundry, wait until all the water gets used up, do another load of laundry.


SO, I DO want to upgrade my graywater storage container to something bigger. But to do that, it has to fit in the crawlspace. What is no more than 22 inches high, and can fit through the access hole to the crawlspace?

The best suggestion I have heard so far is..... A WATERBED MATTRESS!

I actually think it's a pretty good idea. A waterbed mattress is designed to hold all the weight of the water, and it's the right shape. It can also be squished up to fit down into the space.

I would need to have a good filter system, as it would be a huge pain to try to clean out the inside of a waterbed mattress!

A waterbed mattress sounds like a very good idea! Also, seems to me overflow wouldn't even need to be an issue: have a hose/pipe running from the mattress up to a container on the countertop: when the mattress has room, the water goes from the washer hose into the container, down another hose/pipe into the mattress. If the mattress is full, the water level will be up in the container, so additional water flows out the container's overflow into the utility sink.

Then, if you slant the mattress (or dig down a touch at the drain point) so the drain/fill is at the lowest point, and tee the two hoses (to container by sink and to pump) there, you won't get any air in the system unless you're almost completely empty. (how much room do you have? you could fill your whole crawlspace with mattresses!)

Sounds like a theory, anyway!

edit: If you want to get really ambitious, since you'd be storing water in the crawlspace, you could put that sort of diverter on any drain you wanted. (I assume a: you have access to your drain lines in the crawlspace, and b: they are pvc or something easily modified vs cast iron or the like) It wouldn't even need to be a container: just a tee of some sort where the water drains into the waterbed leg unless that leg is full of water: then it has an out to the regular drain (ie sideways tee: source at top, storage at bottom, and drain at side)

edit2: if you went that direction, you wouldn't even need the container by the sink. just mod the washer drain, or mod the sink drain and put the washer hose in the sink.

edit the third: And once you've got your crawlspace filled with water coming from all your drains, don't forget to tee off after the pump and put in a hose bib so you can water your garden & lawn with all your free water! (since your objective is to keep it out of the sewage tank)

Info overkill!
 

After thinking about it more, heres my thoughts on the matter (AKA take or leave as much as you want.)

First two thousand words on the subject, and then some more words about those two thousand words:

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/member...ter-system.jpg

This drawing is the proof of concept idea I mentioned about having a 5 gallon bucket on the counter. (beginning of previous post)



http://ecorenovator.org/forum/member...ull-system.jpg

This drawing is the all out "pimp my graywater" system. (one drain tie-in and one mattress shown for simplicity. Add as many of each as you can for the "super pimpified" system):D

Notes regarding 2nd drawing:

A: These elbows are to keep air from getting into the bottom horizontal pipe if the water level in the bucket drops too low. This will keep air out of the mattress(es), maximizing the storage space available. That horizontal pipe is also where you'd tee off to add more drains and/or mattresses

B: Float valve in the bucket turns on city water to keep the system from running dry when the mattress(es) get emptied. The contraption on top of the bucket is just a pipe going above the max water line to act as a vent, and a place to add city water (better to have water pipe at entrance to other pipe: don't have to worry about putting a backflow preventer on the water pipe.

B.2: Not quite sure how the valve would work. probably easiest would be a toilet valve? (then you'd have city water piping inside the bucket, and need a backflow in case it leaked, even if the pipe went back above the water line?) Maybe toilet valve is above max water line on end of pipe, but float at min water line is connected by a rod going through the pipe?

C: Pump inlet at the very bottom of the bucket . If there's more capacity in the bucket below the min water line than in your toilet tank it might be good to have a float switch here to keep the pump from running dry. Otherwise, probably not a big deal.

D: Mattress really needs to be on some sort of platform to allow maximum water storage (otherwise, the pump will be sucking air when the mattress is still 1/2 full). Height really depends on how high you can get your drain diverters: top of highest mattress should be below lowest diverter (which determines max water level). but bottom of lowest mattress should be as high as possible to keep the pump inlet under water.

Material notes:
-For the horizontal pipes I was thinking 2" PVC, probably wouldn't go smaller than 1&1/2", though I'd likely keep the vertical piping the same size as the existing drain line. (and maybe even the whole system)

-Was thinking 5 gallon bucket for pump inlet. Could use almost anything you could fit into crawlspace (though you'd want a couple of gallons between pump inlet and min waterline). If it was tall enough to be above the max waterline, that would be a serious bonus: the only hole you'd need to make would be inlet (A) and you wouldn't have to worry about waterproofing the lid and riser pipe. City water and pump feed could both go over the top edge, and you'd have a lot more room to mess with a toilet valve for the city water. (could cut that 30 gal container to fit)

-I don't see a good way to avoid needing a riser for the mattress(es) since I believe you said the floor is concrete (can't dig down). Wouldn't have to be too high (6"? depends on lowest drain diverter), and could be almost anything: bricks, wood/plywood, build a frame and fill with dirt... just put an old blanket or something over to be sure there's no sharp edges!:eek:

-A washer hose would probably be the easiest way to hook up the mattress into the PVC (rather than using PVC the whole way to the mattress; PVC would be sure to keep the mattress valve at the lowest point, but if you had to detach the mattress, you'd have to cut the PVC to unthread the fitting from the mattress)


Well that was longer than I expected! Take into consideration that I do MUCH more brainstorming than putting into practice, so by even doing as much as you've already done you are awesome in my book! Looking forward to seeing the next step of the project, no matter what direction it takes. :thumbup:

Feel free to leave positive comments. Criticism can be e-mailed to b.obama at whitehouse dot gov ..... er, I mean, all questions and comments welcomed!

Excuse me, as I've not read the whole thread, so this may have already been discussed:

Why not use a branched-drain greywater system? Uses only a surge tank, perhaps a plastic garbage can, of ~40 gallons, to briefly detain the sudden discharge from the washing machine or bathtub. The greywater then goes out through ~1.5" tubes arranged with a downhill slope so there is no pooling anywhere along the line. Goes through a series of Y branches, dividing the flow at each, ultimately into plenums below grade, preferably at the bottom of a tree. Each plenum is made with an inverted plastic plant pot or bucket, such that the inlet is at least a few inches higher than the sand/gravel at the bottom, and no roots can reach up and block the inlet. This way, the greywater never pools or collects in a septic tank, which would give it time to go septic and become blackwater. The ~1.5" pvc pipe is too wide for blockage, and hair, etc. is filtered as it comes out of the washing machine or bathtub: Nylon stockings make a good filter. The plenums/inverted buckets are below grade to keep the flow away from kids and pets, going directly to tree roots, which then use it and disperse into the atmosphere via evapotranspiration.

Plants, btw, will dissipate such water ~1,000 times faster than simple evaporation. You would not want to use this to irrigate tomatoes, but fruit or other trees esp. willows would be fine.

They are great for new construction, but not for my situation. I would need to do a lots of retro-fit plumbing work, I already have drainage issues on my property, my house is already practically on the lot line, I would have greywater pipes crossing buries power and cable TV lines, etc.

Also, winter is a major consideration. Pipes need to be buried deep to prevent freezing, but near the surface to dissipate water.

By just reusing water inside the house, I don't have to deal with winter (It's a year-round system) I don't have to dig up my yard, and I don't have to deal with the neighbors, zoning and permitting, etc.

In Hugh Jim Bissel's drawings, the first one is more or less what I plan on doing next.

So far the system has worked well, with the exception of of toilet use driving when we do the laundry!

Also, my wife wakes up about an hour before I do. One morning I woke up to hear the greywater pump running. I asked her how long it was making that noise, and she said "I don't know...maybe an hour?"

The pump was hot to the touch. I'm lucky it didn't burn itself out. It turns out that the garden hose used as the pump inlet pipe wiggled enough loose to be still in the 30 gallon garbage can, but NOT down in the water - so the pump just ran and ran and ran and ran.....

In the long run, I would like to connect the shower drain to the greywater system, but I would need a really good filter system and overflow on it. Also, having only about 26" of vertical space in the crawlspace makes it difficult to design for filters and all the other things needed for a "pimped-out" system.

I think the next step is to upgrade to a waterbed mattress holding tank in the crawlspace (on some sort of a basic angled platform to create a low point) and design a combination filter/overflow in the laundry room.

I would like to design that with a 5-gallon bucket for size, cost, and simplicity. I would need to make sure that a filter could handle the speed/volume of water that comes out of the washing machine.

Does anyone have a suggestion for filter design? I need something that can be easily washed/replaced (preferably NOT just thrown away though) catch the lint, and NOT get clogged up too quickly.

If that doesn't work well with just a 5-gallon bucket on the counter, I could use the 30 gallon trash can, but it would be harder to design the overflow, and is big enough that I sure can't just set it on my counter!

My blackwater holding tank alarm just went off this morning. It's a 2000 gallon tank. When we first moved in the house, the tank needed emptying about every 5 weeks. When we got the front-loading washer and dryer, it went to 6 weeks. Now, using the front-loaders, and the homebrew greywater toilet system, it has been 50 days since the last holding tank pumping.

In my area, it costs $90 for a sanitation company to come pump out the 2000 gallon tank.
5 weeks = 10.4 times per year
6 weeks = 8.6
7 = 7.43

10.4 times $90 = $936
7.43 x $90 = $668.7
Annual Savings = $267.30

I paid $150 for the used washer and dryer, and about $180 for the pump, pressure tank, PEX line, and all other parts.

That's roughly a 15 month time period for a return on investment if we are purely talking money. If you also have concerns about how much water we pull out of the ground, that's just a bonus!

I figure that electric use will be nearly identical. Every watt that I saved from my well pump running is now running the greywater pump instead.

While the pump which I purchased (NEW) was not inexpensive, and at this point, a bit overkill, it does carry a warranty, and allows for expansion of the system in the future.

I have a nice brass "pump-T" on the pump which has additional plumbing connections available on it. To add an outdoor spigot to a garden hose would be a simple job.

If I eventually connected the shower waste drain to the greywater system, I would consider adding a series of "filtering plants" outside, which could be watered with the excess water. These would be "rain garden" type plants, and again, only useful in the non-freezing months of the year.

You might want to consider the following:

-bigger than 5 gallon holding tank, perhaps a larger plastic bucket or somesuch, as the discharge from the washer may overwhelm or overflow the 5 gallon version

-separate & independent branched drain system for the shower stall

-since water is not pooled anywhere in the lines of a properly installed branch drain system, and since the lines should be buried below the frost line, winter weather should not be a problem. Just to be safe, maybe bury the lines another ~6" below the frost line in your area.

-used women's nylon stockings have been found to be good filters for lint, hair, etc..

- read Art Ludwig's books on branched drain grey water, et al, available from Amazon.com or probably at your local library or via inter-library loan

-these systems are amazingly inexpensive, no moving parts, gravity powered, and failsafe if done right

Just guessing, I think the 5-gallon bucket may not be big enough for the filter/overflow, but I think I will still start there for experimenting at least.

6" below my frost line is the water table! I live right down the street from a lake. That's why my house doesn't have a septic system in the first place!

I'll give the ladies stockings a first run for filter expermentation. (Maybe my wife has some with a run in them? Otherwise the next time I am past Walmart...)

I'll see if I can get Mr. Ludwig's book through the library.


[EDIT] I found four books by Art Ludwig through the interlibrary loan! I placed a reserve on them! Thanks for the tip.

I just checked my calendar, and it looks like the last time I had the holding tank emptied was two weeks before I started this project.

For two of the seven weeks that I have been filling my tank, that was NOT with the greywater toilet system.

That means my NEXT tank should be even BETTER than 50 days

I got a couple of the books by Art Ludwig. They are sort of oversized magazine-style publications.

I did see that a lot of the information was repeated from one book to another. I was only paging through them the other night when I was pretty tired. It looked like there were a few diagrams that had some very good plumbing tips and tricks.

I also just got an entire waterbed kit through Craigslist. It includes the bladder, frame, heater, hose adapters, etc.

If I cut off the posts from the headboard and footboard, I think I can just setup the ENTIRE BED in my crawspace! Still gotta double-measure it first.

The waterbed heater should make a good battery warmer for the Electro-Metro for this coming winter.

I put the waterbed together.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12417283330001

The top of the side rails of the bed is 18".

The distance from my crawlspace concrete floor to the lower part of the wood supports of my main level floor is 20"!

That means that if I cut off the headboard and the footboard posts, the whole thing will fit in the crawl-space.

I attached the garden hose and it took about 30 minutes to fill. Afterwards, I filled a 5-gallon bucket with the same hose. That took almost precisely one minute. So, the waterbed holds around 150 gallons.

I also multiplied 5' wide by 7' long by anywhere from 6-8 inches deep, converted that to cubic feet, and then that to gallons and got from 130-170. So it sounds like the 150 gallons guess is pretty close.

I believe that water weighs in the neighborhood of 8 lbs per gallon, so that's over 1000 lbs of water! Good thing it's going on the foundation!

Anyone have any suggestions for how I can fill and drain BOTH through the same hole?

If I can just have one hose permanently connected to the waterbed mattress, then it acts as a "bladder" with no place to leak out of!

I believe that this would also eliminate the need for a low point because the entire mattress would simply go down as it "deflates".

I am imagining some sort of a "T" a bit up a section of hose that connects to the mattress, but I am not sure exactly what or how I could connect the washer/filter and pump at the same time!

The T fitting sounds like a good idea. I'd still like to see some sort of pickup tube that goes down into the waterbed bag though to make sure you aren't ever sucking up air.

I now have a waterbed in my crawlspace!

Ok - just the bag, not the whole frame. I didn't see any good reason to shove the whole frame down there.

I got a garden hose "T" which includes 4 shut-offs built in, which will make it much easier to hook everything up, and even drain the mattress as well.

I do NOT have a bit of hose that sticks down into the mattress, but I will burp out any air from the mattress before finalizing the setup.

Preliminarily, it's looking pretty good.

Here's a garden hose manifold with integrated shut-offs. The blue connection is what connects to the waterbed.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12418281290001

Here's the custom end connection I used to make a "female to female" hose to connect the mattress to the pump.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12418281200001

Next thing is that I am going to need a pretty decent filter. I do NOT want lint and ickyness going into the waterbed. Pretty easy to wash out a garbage can....not so easy with a mattress!

I bled the air from the system.

I laid on top of the waterbed mattress and opened the valve on one of the "spare" connections on the manifold.

Air came whistling out. When it stopped and I had a few dribbles of water, I closed the valve!

I now have a large bladder of water with no air in it to mess with my pump!

If the mattress is on a platform and you have the mattress connection at the lowest point of the mattress with the T below that, then you won't be getting air into the mattress unless you've pumped all the water out of all your piping; and the mattress should act like a bladder.

Also if you're using a garden hose between the filter and the mattress, than you're probably right that a 5 gallon bucket won't be big enough to capture all the water (though thats the good thing about the overflow spout: if the mattress is full or the filter clogs or can't pass enough water, it goes into the sink). Though, maybe if the filter was in the bottom of that 30gal container: the washload of water could slowly filter down to the mattress, and if the mattress is full or you have to do two loads back to back then you move the washer hose to the original drain.

Something I just thought of: you may end up sucking air into your pump through your fill hose. If there's enough water in the mattress it may not be an issue, though I guess you won't know until you try. My only suggestion to counteract that if it is an issue would to make a "reservoir" of water available to the pump: for example, have some the fill line flow into some pvc pipe before the T, so there's much more water volume between the pump inlet and the static water level. (hope that makes sense)

I am now going away from using the waterbed mattress.

The mattress is out of the way, but that means that it is harder to pay attention to, so I can make sure everything is working right.

Also, filtering, draining, etc are harder with the waterbed.

What I really need is just more space next to the washer. My wife suggested that we really don't use our washtub at all. BRILLIANT! Removing the utility tub next to the washer frees up another two feet of space that could be dedicated to a greywater holding tank or filter system.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12488228230001
Removed utility tub temporarily moved to back porch.


I took out the tub, and now had space for a big plastic drum. I am not sure what size the drum is - I think it is about 40 gallons. By using both the garbage can AND drum, I should be able to do two or three loads of laundry at once.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12488227790001


Also, with the utility tub removed, that frees up both a hot and cold water source AND a drain.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12488228020001

I should be able to design an "overflow" so that if the greywater tank is full, any extra laundry water will simply go down this drain instead.

Also, I could use the cold water supply for a "makeup water" supply.
For example, I could design something similar to a toilet float system that sits on the bottom of the tank. If all the water in the tank gets used up (party at our house - too many guests peeing!) cold water will be automatically added to a certain minimal level.

At this point the plan is to get some sort of a larger container that will maximize water storage in the available space. I also plan to add some sort of filtering as well, although just a plain "lint sock" seems to be working OK so far.

Are you still on the same tank, or how long did it go before you had to have it pumped?

Good to see an update, I'd been wondering how things were going.:thumbup: