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Old 03-13-09, 10:20 AM   #6
bennelson
Home-Wrecker
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: SE Wisconsin
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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,

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.



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!
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