I would like to install a grey water system in our house. I like the Brac http://www.bracsystems.com/residential.html system but it is pretty expensive.
All I want to do is collect some grey water and use it for the toilets. I want it to be a central tank like the Brac system.
Is there any that are less $ or can I make one? The smallest Brac one is $ 1749 canadian.
Or does 1,749 sound reasonable. I have looked at toilets that use less water and like the Toto dual flush but they are $300. I can keep our three old ones and use no water flushing them.
Replies
Interesting topic. I'd like to do something similar. Unfortunately it's not even legal here right now.
I called my building dept and they said to draw up a plan for what I want to do. I have a nice building dept though. It makes sense that if they are new and they don't have a lot of experience with them that they would review them on a case by case situation for now. I planned on just getting water from one shower and the washing machine to use for three toilets. If I wanted to or if there is a need I could put another barrel next to for more storage. I think that could be done.
Did you look at the Brac system? Does 1,749 seem like a lot for this unit?
Edited 2/26/2008 9:30 am ET by popawheelie
You are obviously not from Northern Idaho! I designed a greywater disposal system that met commercial standards and accepted by the State DEQ, but rejected by the local health district as 'unapproved'. Spent thousands on legal fees to challenge it only to run into a brick wall. Heads in the sand in my opinion.
$1700 wow my water bill is about $40/mo
thats 3 years just to break even
and I have an old style washer
We have old toilets that use whatever old toilets use per flush. So I asked here ( and read other posts) about what toilets are good at flushing and still use less water. I think the Toto dual flush is a good one because it uses very little water when you just pee and uses adequate water when you have to flush a bm.
I looked around and they go for around $300. So if i was going to change out all three toilets for $ 900 you need to subtract that amount from the $1749 to be fair.
Even if i went for a less expensive toilet three of them would add up. I'm not going to buy toilets based on price just to find out they don't work. We've been through that and it's not worth the money saved. When the poo doesn't go down or the water comes up to the rim of the toilet or it overflows people get real upset. And I get blamed for it. Not going there.
So just looking at your current water bill and the total price isn't a complete picture. From what I've heard fresh water is going to become a big issue in the near future. The price will go up and they will put a tier system in the billing. We already have a tier system here but I think it will get much steeper in the future.
how do you wash clothes-the front loaders save a lot of water but are complicated and more trouble prone
The older style washers are pretty much a thing of the past around here. Most people are buying the new stackable front loading ones. That's what we bought this time around.
I don't think you need a dual flush Toto. I have older Totos (Augustas) that are dual flush if I just hold the handle for a short time. Check out Toto Drakes with G-max, they do the same thing... bombs away. Winterlude, Winterlude, my little daisy,
Winterlude by the telephone wire,
Winterlude, it's makin' me lazy,
Come on, sit by the logs in the fire.
The moonlight reflects from the window
Where the snowflakes, they cover the sand.
Come out tonight, ev'rything will be tight,
Winterlude, this dude thinks you're grand.
Had a front loader for 10 years and no more problems with it than any other washer I have had.
They really aren't very complicated.
You had good luck. they are much more complicated and have more expensive hard to diagnose parts- like circuit boards that the old style do not have
Mine has essentially the same technology as a regular machine. Nothing hard to diagnose about it at all.
what brand?
Frigidaire
There is a short book on greywater systems titled: Builder's Greywater
Guide: Installation of Greywater Systems in New Construction &
Remodeling; A Supplement to the Book "Create an Oasis With Greywater" by
Art Ludwig. I just received a copy but have not had time to read it
yet. It has very positive reviews on Amazon.com, for what that is
worth. The author also has another book that deals more with the
theoretical issues than this one. Both books are rather short - this
one is 51 pages. On Amazon, it is at:
<!---->
http://www.amazon.com/Builders-Greywater-Guide-Installation-Construction/dp/0964343320/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204160737&sr=8-2<!---->
OK It takes 3 years to break even: were u planning on dying then or could u start making a dent in the bill?tigger
$1700 wow my water bill is about $40/mothats 3 years just to break even and I have an old style washer
Even then, there still may not be a break even point. For example, I pay $36 per month. That is the minimum payment, even if I use no water
you mean JUST 3 years to break even ... seems like a bargain
I emailed a place here in Colorado and recieved this reply. Their reply makes me think they are more rural gardening types. I'm in town and am looking for water savings in the house. There are a few points I don't agree with. I emailed them asking for a system similar to the Brak system but less expensive.
"At the very least, it makes absolutely no sense to flush the phosphate and bacteria killing soap laden filtered greywater down the toilet and into your septic tank where it disrupts digestive function"
Huh? Just where do they think the grey water goes if not recirculated? Some separate septic field?
At least they are talking about the greatest weakness of greywater systems, that they need filtering and treatment (and, unsaid, tankage) for any real use.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I hear you. I want to talk about it not get yelled at. I think these people are into gardening and the whole organic save the whales thing. That's fine by me but I'm living in town and have to think of re-sale with everything I do. That's why I like the Brak system. It's kind of a no-brainer. It's a step in the right direction.
I think if the general population is going to accept/buy into alternative technologies you have to do it in little increments. It also can't be to difficult to maintain. People are afraid the system is going to be a white elephant. They will look like the nut on the block who put grey water in and there lawn/toilets turned brown. People hate to look stupid.
The Brak system looks like it is well made and self contained. If some prospective buyer of my house looked at it in the basement they would see the Brak label and the way it is finished and think it is a good unit. They could go online to the website and see it. They could brag about how they get free water for their toilets and they can use toilets that aren't those pesky low water ones.
You have to sell these ideas. A lot of the alternative save the planet people couldn't sell anything. They just want everyone to see things their way right now because they are right.
Agree with poster above -- have a Toto that is single flush, but if you just give the handle a gentle push, it gives a half-flush. Hold it down to get a full flush.
With the old toilet, we kept a plunger in a bucket beside the toilet. with the Toto, the plunger is somewhere in the basement. Would have to go looking for it - haven't used it more than once in 4.5 years
If i buy a single flush Toto how much will it cost? If I buy three of them how much will it cost me. The point I was making was that you need to deduct the price of the toilets from the overal cost of the grey water system. I've read the LOOONNNGGG threads on toilet preferences and really don't want to go there.
I think re-using water to flush the toilets is a good idea if it doesn't cost to much. Did you read the info at the Brak website? http://www.bracsystems.com/home.html
Edited 2/27/2008 11:24 pm ET by popawheelie
I'm curious about grey water systems - know some local builders who won't build anything that doesn't include one - but I still haven't moved past the gut feeling that waste water is just that, waste, and should be evacuated from the house.
Collecting rainwater, then using it to flush, water the lawn, wash the car with, that's one thing. Actually having the water in my toilet bowls coming from waste lines in the house? That seems like a whole 'nother level of questionable health risks to me.
I took a quick look at the site you linked to, went a few pages in, as far as the diagram of how their system would work. Looks simple enough, but I wondered it the cost you have quoted includes installation/retrofit costs. Seems like they wouldn't hurt so bad in a new building, but could get expensive in a retrofit situation.
Just a couple thoughts. Nice to see this topic here at Breaktime. Thanks.
I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
The price doesn't include any installation. That is just the price of the unit minus shipping. So it is a bit pricey. That's why I was looking for someone who had one for less $. I think you could use one of the plastic blue 55 gal. barrels and just buy the hardware/kit/instructions.
In the description of how the Brak system works it says that there is a screen that filters water as it comes in the tank. That needs to be cleaned once a month. After it goes through the screen it is chlorinated automatically so the water in the tank doesn't go bad. Basically the stuff in the water is killed. So water in your toilet is going to be fine for a toilet. It might even be more chlorinated than tap water so you would have to clean the toilet bowl less often.
My house has a basement and I plan on remodeling different rooms anyway. One shower/tub sits directly above the area where this unit would go. It would be very easy for me to pull down the drywall and route the waste line for the shower to this unit. I could set it up so it could be changed beck easily. It's just plastic pipe. the supply lines for the toilet could be 3/8" pex. I can get 3/8" pex just about anywhere.
While I applaud your conservation thinking I don't think this is a particularly good use for a grey water system. If you could collect rainwater from the roof for you toilets that would be one thing. And this how it is done on large commercial buildings. I think getting low flow toilets is a better idea. Taunton has just come out with a new issue that talks about the latest and greatest toilets (amongst other things).
http://store.taunton.com/onlinestore/item/027011.htmlYou should also look at
http://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm
for his opinions.And while we are on the subject of water conservation
http://www.epa.gov/watersense/And check out this device. It has the potential to save a lot of energy.
http://gfxtechnology.com/contents.html#selection
"While I applaud your conservation thinking I don't think this is a particularly good use for a grey water system"
why? When you throw out statements with out explanation I am not convinced.
There are cheaper and easier ways to save water and this will introduce contaminated water within reach of pets, children and your nose.
BTW any home buyer is not gona give a rats azz that you installed this system. They just want as much space for as little money as possible. So if you do it, it is for your own benefit.
Are you sure people won't care if there is a system that saves water installed in the house. I think you don't care and think everyone else won't as well. Also, It depends on what part of the country you are in.
Some parts of the country are more open to new things and some parts of the country are more aware as a whole of the enviroment.
I don't want to argue the point though. That's not what I came here to do.
Take a look at this it might just be what you want.http://www.watersavertech.com/AQUS-Diagram.html
Must need some type of pump to pressurize the supply line(s), don't you? Wiring for the pump? I guess you could set it up using gravity if the tank was above the toilet(s) it services...
"Chlorine"? I'm not a fan. Highly toxic stuff. I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
I was in a hotel recently that used grey water in the toilets. The smell in the bathroom was not pleasant.
Storing untreated greywater for more than 24 hours is generally not recommended. Greywater contains organics and can become septic and smelly. Kitchen sink waste is probably the worst for this.
Greywater may also contain anaerobic bacteria that break down detergents and release sulfur-containing (i.e. "smelly") compounds.
I'm in favor of re-use, but doing it right involves more than just collecting waste water in a container and storing it for later use.
did you read the ifo at the links i provided? Read about the Brak unit.
I'd like to see one in use. One thing I'm a bit confused about: the info on the individual units talks about an electronic chlorinator, the FAQs talk about dropping a chlorine tablet in the unit periodically. A demand chlorinator would be better at maintaining a proper level of chlorine.
In any case, the chlorine and the filter should potentially prevent the odor problems. I'd still be reluctant to use it with kitchen sink wastewater, but I might try it with laundry.
I think laundry would be the water that would be the cleanest but I'm not sure if it would be enough for three toilets. It depends on the households laundry and toilet habits. The one shower that I was going to use water from is my shower so I know what goes down the drain. I have to shower regularly so it would be plenty.
I know that my fourteen year old has a habit of putting things down the bathroom sink drain instead of taking them out. She stopped up our bath sink pretty quickly because of that.
I was thinking that if you had a guest over and you weren't sure if they had hepatitis or some other potentially water born illness ( not sure if I worded that right) you might not want to hook up that shower or bath sink. I know our family doesn't have any illness that could be spread through water but you never know with guests.
You just have to pay attention and most people aren't used to that. Our last house was on a well and I got used to monitoring the water. It was kind of like having a water plant in the basement.
Edited 2/29/2008 11:42 pm ET by popawheelie
I think you've hit on one of the most important aspects of this issue. The appropriate use of gray water depends somewhat on the individual household and how well it manages the gray water. If there's someone in the house with a gastrointestinal illness, the bacterial counts in gray water tend to rise. Same with laundering diapers.
I was thinking laundry waste was a bit cleaner, but just looked up some data and it seems that it's similar to bathroom gray water. Combining laundry water with bathtub and maybe lavatory water seems like one way to go.
I think a good resource for graywater reuse is New South Wales, Australia, where it looks like they've been serious about it for some time. Here's a link that you may find interesting: http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/ehb/general/wastewater/greywater_policy.pdf
I tend to agree that there is no place inside a home for pressurized non-potable waste water. I think far better to use water conserving toilets like the Toto Aquia or Kohler Cimarron and run gray water into sub-surface irrigation of foundation plantings if you don't want to send it to the sewer. I've been a plumber for twenty years and I've seen some interesting things in that time. The one that really sticks with me is seeing a saddle valve for an ice maker hooked up to a soft copper natural gas line under a kitchen in Durham NC. I was there to replace a pressure reducing valve and looked up and there it was, some bozo had hooked his new ice maker up to make propane ice cubes. I can just imagine him turning the ice maker valve on in the kitchen and smelling that propane rolling out the refrigerator door when he opened it. He had just gone back to the crawlspace and turned the saddle valve off and bent the tubing back on itself and left it like that. If it had been gray water he would have had some nasty ice cubes. Over in Cary NC (the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) they had a house that had accidentally been hooked up to a municipal gray water irrigation water main. The family, immigrants from India, lived with that water for months before they figured out the mistake and nobody got sick! Amazing to me what people will tolerate. So my bottom line is that if it's pressurized water in a pipe inside the house it ought to be potable. Gray water is best used for irrigation from my perspective. Much cheaper to use low flush toilets and the money you save could go to slapping a waste heat recovery unit on the outflow of your master shower and running the cold water feed to the same shower through it to pre-warm the cold water entering the shower and save hot water there. Just my opinion, which with a buck still won't buy a cuppa coffee at Star*ucks any more.m
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I get confused when I read about water cleanliness issues. It has always been my understanding that the water in our drainfields, for example, filters down back into the aquifer and the impurities get filtered out through that process.
So it seems to me that when I flush, or bathe, or run a load of dishes or laundry, I am not "consuming" that water, so much as "borrowing" it. That it gets reused over and over as it runs out to sea, evaporates into clouds and falls back to earth as rain before filtering down into the aquifer...and on and on.
So what am I missing? Where is the failure in our system?I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
I spent about 14 years doing environmental work with a local river cleanup group and we were dealing with two types of discharge into the river. Point source is all the factories and municipal waste treatment plants that get permits to discharge waste water into the rivers. The big problem here in NC is that we have storm drains that are cross connected with the sewer mains, generally just by being buried in proximity and having cracks in the pipes such that when it rains the storm runoff overwhelms the storm drains and fills up and runs over into the sewers. This causes the "run of the whitefish" where the treatment plants get overwhelmed and run straight into the rivers. This is bad enough as it is with raw sewage floating down a beautiful recreational waterway (the Haw River here in my back yard)and into a public reservoir but on top of the sewage we are receiving the salt brine Sara Lee uses to pressure wash their bakery and discharge from other light industry which is permitted to dump into the sewage system and most noxious of all the landfills need to have a way to dispose of the rain water that lands on the solid waste mountain. It runs off filled with landfill tea including batteries that have been run over and all sorts on nasty stuff into a system of french drains and pipes and is collected in tanker trucks and mixed with the human sewage at the treatment plant and "treated" with the solids being spread on agricultural fields and the liquid running straight into the river and down to the Raleigh reservoir and through the same loop until it makes it to the sea. So the water you borrow gets mixed with all sorts of nasties at the treatment plant and "treated" and dumped in to the river whence it cycles through a few more reservoirs and on down to the sea. And then there is the non-point-source discharges which include septic tanks and car washes and parking lots and construction sites that discharge into the soil and creeks and into what we call the hyporheic zone which is the network of underground drainage that mimics the above ground drainage (remember the movie Sahara) that causes the surface water to flow horizontally until it reaches the river and flows down to the sea. We encourage people to hold as much storm water runoff and gray water on site as possible for a number of reasons having mainly to do with slowing down the storm surge and pushing more clean water into the hyporheic zone to refresh that and keep it clean and to keep silt and pollution out of small creeks and ponds. A lot of the increased damage related to recent flooding has to do with the amount of pavement and roofing that sheds its water so quickly into the storm water system and flushes rain water so quickly into the rivers causing huge flooding down stream. I used to think that a big rain was a cleansing event for the local rivers but actually it is more of a cleansing event for roofs and parking lots and a flooded river is much more polluted than a dry river. So hang onto your storm water on site and use your gray water for irrigation (immediately, it gets nasty in hours if not used)I have a short article on making an inexpensive rain garden on my web site.
http://www.chandlerdesignbuild.com/files/rainGardenComplete.pdf
More info about the hyporheic zone can be found at
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/St-Ts/Stream-Hyporheic-Zone-of-a.html
and information about the Haw River Assembly that is trying and succeeding at cleaning up our little river here in NC can be found at
http://www.hawriver.org/
I'm no longer involved there as I'm volunteering with the Green Home Council and infiltrating the NAHB to spread the word about green building these days. M------------------
"We DON'T build them like they used to."
"Over in Cary NC (the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) they had a house that had accidentally been hooked up to a municipal gray water irrigation water main."Do you know how that happened?If that is the case that I remember from about 1-2 years ago it was said that the home owner made some "unauthorized" repairs.I don't remember the details, but what little information in the stories did not make sense..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
<<"Over in Cary NC (the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) they had a house that had accidentally been hooked up to a municipal gray water irrigation water main."Do you know how that happened?If that is the case that I remember from about 1-2 years ago it was said that the home owner made some "unauthorized" repairs.I don't remember the details, but what little information in the stories did not make sense.>>I just tried to search the article on that from http://www.newsobserver.com with no luck but I definitely think there was some unlicensed plumbing involved and that the city was not at fault.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I just bought a round bowl regular flush Toto MS853113 in "cotton" (i.e. soft white) from my local discount vendor (Granite Expo in Emeryville, CA) for $216 plus CA tax. The elongated bowl version was about $30 more while the "S" version (supposedly with faster flow from the tank) was somewhere around $280 (I think, didn't pay much attention to it). I looked up some vendors on the Internet, but they wanted about $100 more than I paid - didn't check to see if that included shipping. Hope to install it this weekend.
The job we're currently on just got the first of three Toto's installed. Apparently they are a little different to install, took two plumbers 2 hours to remove the existing and install the Toto on a slab...experienced plumber, too. Comes upstairs mumbling to himself, looks me in the eye and says "good thing I'm a God fearing man or I'd be cussing a blue streak. I HATE installing Toto toilets."
Anyways, if you haven't installed one before, plan some extra time and read the instructions. I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
People get stuck in their ways. Lessons come so hard that once you get it down you don't want anything to change. I've heard about the Totos but have yet to instal one.
Hi,
There are some simple grey water reuse schemes here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Water/Water.htm
The "Water From the Sky" book of Reynolds thats mentioned uses rain water capture for fresh water, and then reuses the grey water for toilet flushing after it goes through a biofilter that is part of the house structure -- kind of an indoor garden. The rain water is used three times before it leaves the house. Its a very well thought out scheme with 30+ years of track record.
There is also a really simple rain barrel to toilet flushing scheme shown.
We recently installed a WaterRidge dual flush toilet. Cost was $200, and it works really well. Basically we only use the low flush -- it works for anything. The only place I have seen these is Costco.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Water/OurDualFlus.htm
Gary
Thank you Gary! I'll check both of those out.