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Old 04-30-09, 05:48 PM   #31
bennelson
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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

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Old 05-07-09, 01:54 PM   #32
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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.
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Old 05-07-09, 04:07 PM   #33
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I put the waterbed together.



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!
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Old 05-07-09, 04:35 PM   #34
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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!
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Old 05-08-09, 11:22 AM   #35
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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.
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Old 05-08-09, 06:25 PM   #36
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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.


Here's the custom end connection I used to make a "female to female" hose to connect the mattress to the pump.


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!
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Old 05-08-09, 09:27 PM   #37
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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!
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Old 05-08-09, 10:56 PM   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson View Post
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!

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)

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Old 07-28-09, 06:21 PM   #39
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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.


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.




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



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.
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Old 07-29-09, 09:22 AM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson View Post
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
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.

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