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Old 02-16-09, 12:46 AM   #25
Bob McGovern
Lurking Renovator
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toyobug View Post
Higgy- I had the same thought. My plan was to basically have two types of plumbing systems in the house I build to retire at.
1st- "potable" system would provide water for consumption uses= dishes, showers, sinks, laundry. The drains from these would go to the holding tank. The tank will then be plumbed to supply water to the garden and supplying the necessary water for toilet flushing.
2nd- waste water from toilet flushing would be the only thing that goes to the septic system.
Any suggestions from anyone?
Art Ludwig of Oasis Designs is the authority on gray water; even he has nearly given up on the notion. The thing about gray water is you have to use it right away. If you don't use a holding tank, suspended particles (skin, hair, macaroni) stay afloat and tend to clog stuff downstream. If you do use a holding tank, gray water turns to black water in about two hours.

I got no beef with septic systems -- they are as organic as organic gets. almost all our waste water goes straight into the septic, down thru 130 ft of limestone sand, and presumably back into our well.

As for rain catchment: it works brilliantly. Hard to describe how much water comes off a typical roof in even a short downpour. Many posters here got the challenges pegged: initial runoff nastyness, fine sediment & sludging, algae and microorganism growth, and diversion when full.

Dark barrels warm the water; that's great in winter, but it actually speeds algae growth in summer. We dose ours with unflavored Chlorox once in awhile. Doesn't take much -- half a cap will treat 55 gallons, given time. It may or may not kill certain other beasties, tho -- especially protozoa. So we pump our drinking rainwater thru a 0.5 micron carbon block filter.

We use 55 gallon drums for our drinking water so we can wheel one indoors for winter. For gardening, we have a buried 500 gallon steel tank (former diesel storage) and a 400 gallon poly farm tank. If we run low on irrigation water, we can toss the latter on a flatbed trailer and fill it in town for $1.

Metal roofs are fabulous for rain catchment. We have a fine screen on the barrels which we can knock the bugs out of. There's a bit of sludging, but people have lived off cisterns for millennia with limited trouble. It's open watercourses that breed dysentery and cholera. When a barrel is nearly empty, we take it to the patio, slosh it good, and pour out most of the sediment.

One interesting side effect of drinking rain water is its lack of salts or trace ions. Our bodies are used to gleaning certain micronutrients from drinking water. Shouldn't be an issue if a person is eating a balanced diet. Just thought I'd mention it. Oh -- and watch out where you get used barrels. Some of them may have held concentrated pesticides, and those residues may be impossible to rinse out. Oh -- and rain catchment is illegal in some places, like Colorado. Pipples take their water rights seriously in the West, and the rain that hits your roof is owned by somebody. Fort Collins was threatening to cite people with rain barrels, although they have since backed down in the face of jeering.
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