Reusing Water
Lou
lawn. Has anyone come across a household underground system either
professional or home made that could be retrofitted?
Lou
Dave
"Lou" <lou...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7913a6c3-5648-4c1c...@73g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
Why not just get a cheap sump pump, hook it up to a garden hose, and drape
the hose out the bathroom window? When you take a shower, leave the drain
closed. When you are done taking bath or shower, dip the sump pump inlet
into the water, fire it up, and let it empty through a sprinkler onto the
lawn.
Note that you do not want the sump pump in the shower/bath, or nearby where
it can fall into the shower/bath, as normally you don't want an electrical
appliance to take a bath with you. But you can keep it in the bathroom
somewhere handy. -Dave
Lou
> "Lou" <loup...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Although I wouldn't go to that extreme Dave, isn't a sump sealed to
prevent
electrical problems?
Vic Smith
wrote:
In my area house drainage commonly has these main components.
1. A stack from toilet(s) that goes through the basement floor and
directly into the sewer system.
2. A sink line that is tied in to sinks/tubs/showers that goes through
the basement floor and into a tile that is tied into an outside catch
basin.
3. The catch basin is a brick lined hole in the ground with a concrete
rim at ground level, the hole covered by a lighter version of a
manhole cover. It is about ten feet deep, and a yard wide.
The sink line comes in near the bottom of the basin and there is a
hole a couple feet above that connects back to the main sewer
line.
The purpose of the catch basin is to let grease or other non-sewer
compatible solids from sinks settle out and only allow relatively
clean water to enter the sewer system.
Catch basin must be cleaned every so many years. Normally you hire a
company to come out and suck/scoop the sludge out, but I've never had
it done, and my catch basin is ok.
My house was built in 1959. Had the same system on every house I've
lived in here, but I understand they do it differently now, maybe
undersink grease traps.
Perhaps modern kitchen habits and detergents are the reason for the
change. Not sure.
In any case, I believe that the sink line is still a common plumbing
drain design, catch basin or not, so that's where you want to look to
divert the water outside.
A section would be cut out and replaced with a suitable T, most likely
with a valve incorporated, so you could choose when to send the water
outside. There is no pressure on this, so band type fittings will do,
but check the codes. Since mine is steel I would rigidly tie the
upper part of the line either to a joist or the lower part to prevent
sag after cutting, but a real plumber might disagree. With plastic
it's probably not an issue.
A line with suitable slope would be routed through the wall to the
outside, and another valve capping it off.
I would provide a loop back to the original drain so should the flow
to the outside be restricted the water couldn't back up to the
sink/tub, but that's not really necessary.
After that the options of how to store/distribute the sink water are
only limited by your imagination. Underground/surface tank w/pump,
elevated tank allowing gravity to feed soaker hoses, etc.
Depends on heights of lines.
In my place if I cut the sink line in my basement up by the ceiling
the outside fitting would be only a couple feet above ground level.
Either way it's no big job if you have plumbing skills. Should cost
about 3-5 hundred for a plumber to do it.
If your house is on a slab or the drain system markedly different than
what I described above, forget everything I said.
--Vic
Rod Speed
Its pretty easy with the bath, just use a bilge pump to pump
the water out of the bath instead of letting it go down the drain.
Harder with a shower. You can just block the drain with an expandable plug
well down the drain and put the bilge pump into the drain above the plug.
Dave
> Although I wouldn't go to that extreme Dave, isn't a sump sealed to
> prevent
> electrical problems?
Yes, but not to prevent electrocution. That is, if they were designed to
sit in BATHTUBS, you can bet that they would be designed quite a bit
differently. :) -Dave
Don K
There's no need for a pump. Just siphon it out thru the hose.
Don
P T
series of pipes, chutes, and a large container, to store rain water that
ran off his roof, for reuse in the garden. Not only that, but he
convinced his two neighbors to allow him to channel their run off into
his cistern also.
Lou
I'm trying to figure a way to bury a few 50 gallon plastic drums
to drain the tub and shower, then use the water to water the
lawn and maybe flush the toilets. It seems to ridiculous to just use
the water once when you should at least be able to flush the
toilets with it.
Lou
Seerialmom
Not doing it exactly that way but do have a 5 gallon bucket sitting in
the shower to catch some of the spray and the brief cups of water I
draw in pursuit of "hot". I've been watering my plants around the
house for the past month or so using this method.
Best bet would be to see if 1. it's legal where you are to redirect
"grey" water in the plumbing system (vs the passive approach I
mentioned above). 2. Google "grey water" or "home grey water".
Rod Speed
All you need is the standard water tank and put that water in that.
Dont even need to bury it.
terryc
If you can crawl under your house, then you can fit a diverter valve into
the downpipe and pipe it out to your garden, etc. We also had on inside
the laundry tub, but this required a second hole through the floor.
So bathroom for shower and hand basin, kitchen for sink, and laundry for
tub/washing machine.
Should be okay for lawn areas, but keep the organic matter up, aka do not
crop and dispose of the grass clippings but mulch them back into the lawn.
Lou
>
> Should be okay for lawn areas, but keep the organic matter up, aka do not
> crop and dispose of the grass clippings but mulch them back into the lawn.
You got my curiosity up, why?
Lou
vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com
from kitchen to bath to toilet.
- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
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