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Old 03-28-09, 07:53 PM   #19
bennelson
Home-Wrecker
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: SE Wisconsin
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Default 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.


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.


Here's both hoses in the garbage can.


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!
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