gardenlen
31-08-2006, 01:50 AM
i am posting this for norm, as he cannot access the usenet to post
messages, ha can read any responses which i willthen pass on whatever
he may reply.
norm's copy starts here:
"Hi all;
I'm not an expert nor am I a plumber but I have a greywater
system that is working fine. I thought that you might want to read
about it.
I did a lot of research on the Internet and found that fresh
greywater is pretty benign. Sure, there are some pathogens in it but
the count is no worse than what you're sitting in when you have a
bath. In other words, LOW!
The problem occurs if you hold that greywater in a tank. It's a
perfect environment for those pathogens to multiply.
The other concern is grease, fat, food scraps, and soap. It's
easy to see that if they go into a tank, they'll create sludge and
feed the pathogens.
Finally, putting soapy water into the soil can, over time, upset
the soil pH. If I remember correctly, it'll make it alkaline.
I also found that ol' Mother Nature does a really good job in
cleaning up and re-balancing the environment.
If you take few buckets of grey water and throw it on your lawn.
In no time, the water soaks into the soil. The pathogens die or are
killed. The grease, fat, and food scraps decay or get eaten by soil
organisms. Finally, the soap degrades and the pH is re-balanced. Ergo,
no problem! Where this process falls apart is when the soil becomes
super-saturated with greywater.
So, the obvious low-tech solution to greywater is to spread a
little bit - all around. That's exactly the process that I am using.
I live in a small country town on an 860 square meter block. My
house is a low-set Queenslander. It has the bathroom and kitchen at
the back of the house. The laundry room is also at the back of the
house, at ground level. The bath tub and bathroom sink used to drain
into one ground sump. The kitchen sink and laundry drain into another
ground sump.
Using the standard 50mm plastic plumbing pipe, I connected all
the greywater sources to one common pipe. The common pipe drains into
the ground sump close to the outside laundry room. I have a screw-on
plastic piece that goes from the end of this pipe to the ground sump.
This screw-on pipe is where I connect my greywater hose.
I got a plastic cap that screws onto the afore-mentioned pipe. I
drilled a large hole through it and glued a 25mm hose connector to it.
I purchased about 30 meters of 25mm hose and connected it all up.
That's it - that's my greywater system. The plastic cap plugs the
afore-mentioned pipe and the greywater drains off through the 25mm
hose.
Every morning, after feeding my chooks, I move the end of the
25mm hose to another part of my lot. It doesn't have to be moved much,
a few meters every day.
The 25mm hose doesn't drain as fast as a 50mm pipe. This isn't
really a problem as any excess flow backs up into the laundry tubs and
will eventually drain out. This only occurs when emptying the bathtub.
I don't worry about putting the greywater on our root vegetables.
With the low pathogen count and the natural cleansing of the soil,
plus the fact that we only eat cooked root vegetables that have been
washed - how can it be a problem?
Sometimes, the 25mm pipe plugs up at the plastic cap end - once
from a dead green frog, once from soil from pots that we washed out in
the laundry tubs. The fact that the laundry tub was filling up with
water (and not draining) clued us to the problem. It was easy to
disconnect the screw cap and clean it out.
We've been using this simple system for 4 years now and it's
working just fine. We haven't been sick or anything and our plants are
thriving. There is nothing about this system that has caused a
problem.
Norm"
end copy.
With peace and brightest of blessings,
len
--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."
http://www.gardenlen.com
messages, ha can read any responses which i willthen pass on whatever
he may reply.
norm's copy starts here:
"Hi all;
I'm not an expert nor am I a plumber but I have a greywater
system that is working fine. I thought that you might want to read
about it.
I did a lot of research on the Internet and found that fresh
greywater is pretty benign. Sure, there are some pathogens in it but
the count is no worse than what you're sitting in when you have a
bath. In other words, LOW!
The problem occurs if you hold that greywater in a tank. It's a
perfect environment for those pathogens to multiply.
The other concern is grease, fat, food scraps, and soap. It's
easy to see that if they go into a tank, they'll create sludge and
feed the pathogens.
Finally, putting soapy water into the soil can, over time, upset
the soil pH. If I remember correctly, it'll make it alkaline.
I also found that ol' Mother Nature does a really good job in
cleaning up and re-balancing the environment.
If you take few buckets of grey water and throw it on your lawn.
In no time, the water soaks into the soil. The pathogens die or are
killed. The grease, fat, and food scraps decay or get eaten by soil
organisms. Finally, the soap degrades and the pH is re-balanced. Ergo,
no problem! Where this process falls apart is when the soil becomes
super-saturated with greywater.
So, the obvious low-tech solution to greywater is to spread a
little bit - all around. That's exactly the process that I am using.
I live in a small country town on an 860 square meter block. My
house is a low-set Queenslander. It has the bathroom and kitchen at
the back of the house. The laundry room is also at the back of the
house, at ground level. The bath tub and bathroom sink used to drain
into one ground sump. The kitchen sink and laundry drain into another
ground sump.
Using the standard 50mm plastic plumbing pipe, I connected all
the greywater sources to one common pipe. The common pipe drains into
the ground sump close to the outside laundry room. I have a screw-on
plastic piece that goes from the end of this pipe to the ground sump.
This screw-on pipe is where I connect my greywater hose.
I got a plastic cap that screws onto the afore-mentioned pipe. I
drilled a large hole through it and glued a 25mm hose connector to it.
I purchased about 30 meters of 25mm hose and connected it all up.
That's it - that's my greywater system. The plastic cap plugs the
afore-mentioned pipe and the greywater drains off through the 25mm
hose.
Every morning, after feeding my chooks, I move the end of the
25mm hose to another part of my lot. It doesn't have to be moved much,
a few meters every day.
The 25mm hose doesn't drain as fast as a 50mm pipe. This isn't
really a problem as any excess flow backs up into the laundry tubs and
will eventually drain out. This only occurs when emptying the bathtub.
I don't worry about putting the greywater on our root vegetables.
With the low pathogen count and the natural cleansing of the soil,
plus the fact that we only eat cooked root vegetables that have been
washed - how can it be a problem?
Sometimes, the 25mm pipe plugs up at the plastic cap end - once
from a dead green frog, once from soil from pots that we washed out in
the laundry tubs. The fact that the laundry tub was filling up with
water (and not draining) clued us to the problem. It was easy to
disconnect the screw cap and clean it out.
We've been using this simple system for 4 years now and it's
working just fine. We haven't been sick or anything and our plants are
thriving. There is nothing about this system that has caused a
problem.
Norm"
end copy.
With peace and brightest of blessings,
len
--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."
http://www.gardenlen.com