Grey & rain water for toilet flushing - can you reccomend a plumber?

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Grey & rain water for toilet flushing - can you reccomend a plumber?

(13 posts) (9 voices)

Started 4 years ago by lbpoulton
Latest reply from Anonymous

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lbpoulton
Member

I would like to use grey water (from laundry and possibly some from bathroom where appropriate) as well as rain water to flush the toilet. The reason for using both is because I asume I won't get enough grey water alone, and am able to collect a fair volume of rain water as well.

I'm seeking any reccomendations for a plumber who is experienced in grey water installations, someone who can come to my home and tell me I will need X litres of tanks, Z kind of filter system and Y meters of piping - and of course the installation.

Basically the upfront cost of some systems is beyond me at the moment but if I can get some adivse and a plan then over time I will be able to purchase and position some tanks then when I've got the finance for the treatment system and installation I'll be ready to go.

Posted Monday 23 Feb 2009 @ 2:13:43 am from IP #
Benny
Member

Hi lbp - it might help people to give you a recommendation if you say which city/area you are in.

Posted Monday 23 Feb 2009 @ 6:31:53 am from IP #
lbpoulton
Member

That would probably help - I'm not used to posting on forums etc

In the north eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Vic.
Live on a pretty steep hill so have plenty of room under the house for water tanks and pretty direct plumbing up into the floor of the bathroom/laundry etc.

Posted Monday 23 Feb 2009 @ 11:33:05 am from IP #
ghostgum
Member

lbpoulton, you should be able to calculate the amount of water needed to flush the toilets, and the amount of available grey water. Identify the volume per flush, then count the number flushes over several days. Measure the flow rate of your shower, and the volume of water from your washing machine. It is likely that you will have more than enough grey water to flush the toilets.

Rain water is variable. We have had 8mm of rain here in the last two months, giving about 40 litres per day. That's probably just enough for our water efficient toilets, but you need to have mains water as a backup.

Grey water is much more consistent. Showers for 2 adults, bath for two kids and the washing machine produce about 200 litres per day, or well in excess of that required for the toilets. You won't need rain water in addition to grey water. But it's your house, your money, so it's up to you to do the numbers.

Grey water for that purpose requires a treatment system, and I believe annual inspections costing money. With sufficient roof area and water tanks, it may be easier to use rain water for the toilets.

Our house collects rain from almost the entire roof area, into storage under the house. We have enough to water the garden in summer, and to also supply the toilets and washing machine cold for the remaining months. We use untreated grey water to water the lawn and some of the garden in summer. The grey water system collects one shower and the washing machine water, and uses a 3-way valve, to divert to a 200 litre plastic drum on its side. The water passes through a terylene fine mesh bag to collect lint. At the bottom of the drum (which is it's side) it connects to 19mm poly tube, with gravity feed down to the lawn, with about 0.5-1m head between the bottom of the tank and the lawn. The poly pipe has 2-3mm holes drilled in it to let water ooze out onto the lawn, so they can cope with a bit of lint. Nice green lawn at the back of the house. Yellow grass on the nature strip. The most expensive part of the grey water system was getting the plumber to divert the shower and washing machine waste through the 3-way valve. The plastic drum was surplus from a delivery of pickles.

Our plumber preferred the Neta 3-way valve over the ATA one. The Neta valve does not have a vane to collect hair, and can be opened to be cleaned if necessary.

Posted Tuesday 24 Feb 2009 @ 12:59:16 am from IP #
lbpoulton
Member

Thanks that's some really great advice.

Posted Tuesday 10 Mar 2009 @ 1:57:20 am from IP #
dg2829
Member

Regulations in Vic and pretty much the rest of Aus require that unused, untreated grey water be fully drained / flushed away every 24 hours, unless it is treated.

I can tell you from direct experience that it will go septic if you don't treat it.

obviously you are considering using some sort of grey water treatment system or every 24 hours send the rest to the garden. by the way in Victoria strictly speaking it is illegal to use recycled grey water re-entering the house, form what I have found some sort of concern if the treated water was to get mixed with potable water- yes even toilet flushing is in this area, check your regulation very carefully about this, however in our area south east suburbs it is technically not allowed only rain water and mains. sigh regulations from the paranoid auth

Be aware that the regulations also make it quite clear that legally you can not build you own grey water treatment system, unless you can get it approved (really really hard to do) by the right authorities, however there are plans so that you can build your own grey water treatment system on the Internet, but you really must understand the biological implications of this if you were to entertain do this and keep in mind it is strictly not legal to do, which is really a pain as it is not that hard to achieve, and your council will most likely treat it like a septic system and require a permit as well.

Sigh it was just never meant to be easy.............

Posted Wednesday 18 Mar 2009 @ 9:13:25 am from IP #
gully
Member

d2829 is correct and is referring to backflow prevention, look it up and you'll realise why these laws are in place (so you don't swallow washing machine waste water!).

Mixing grey water and rainwater isn't a great idea. Alarm bells would be ringing for most plumbers asked to sign off on this.

A treatment system to convert grey water might be possible - from memory there are even blackwater treatment systems... $$$.

Simplest way - just add tanks to all your downpipes, plumb it to your house and you should get enough rainwater for everything.

Posted Wednesday 17 Mar 2010 @ 1:17:13 am from IP #
Ecobowser
Member

Generally speaking, re-using greywater within the house is a technical and money no-no.

It makes sense for very large users of water (B&Bs, motels etc) but is not worth the money for a residential household with less than 10 people.

Best practice is water tanks for the house (say 5,000 litres), and a greywater system for the garden.

Water tanks for the garden need to be very large. In most cases 10,000 litres is required per month for a graden on a 700 sq metre block, so if you go without rain for 3 months at a time you need at least 30,000 litres capacity.

Posted Thursday 5 Aug 2010 @ 1:06:35 am from IP #
solar_star
Member

If you are a very water efficient household you may not actually generate enough useable grey water to make the purchase of a grey water system worthwhile.

Our current mains water usage comes in at around 75 litres a day total which isn't too bad for 2 people. The water bill that arrived yesterday was nearly $200 of which less than $10 was actual water usage!

we have a 5000 litre tank filled from about 180m2 roof ( it is currently full and has never been empty since the first rainfaill after installing it about 2 years ago (eastern suburbs of melbourne). It is used for toilet flushing ( water efficient toilet) and laundry (4 front loader washes a week ) for 2 people and for watering my vegetable garden and for watering trees and shrubs. We never water the lawn and so far it hasn't died - might look a little sad in summer but I can live with that.

Posted Thursday 5 Aug 2010 @ 3:47:14 am from IP #
Diver
Member

This being an old thread, I post the following as general information keeping in with the poster's questions.

As already posted, grey water treatment systems cost a lot of money, are rarely considered for residential households and treated greywater will still retain high salt levels.

The commonly advertised domestic units are mostly diversion systems that distribute untreated greywater to the garden, mainly through fixed drip lines. Many people think that these common systems treat the greywater but THEY DO NOT!

There is a lot of data available that shows that overuse of greywater can have a detrimental effect on the soil and beneficial microbes. Turf has greater long term resilience but should still not be over-watered with grey water.

The ATA's Renew magazine Issue 112, pages 69-70, has an article about garden greywater use and its effect on soil sodicity and other findings.

A washine machine's final rinse is relatively clean and this can be used by fitting a diverter valve into the laundry drain pipe. This is cheap and effective.

There are many weather data collection stations throughout Australia. The below link allows people to access information including each month's and year's rainfall data, simply find the station number nearest you, enter it where required, then click! This will allow a reasonably accurate calculation of your district's rain pattern.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml?zoom=1&lat=-26.9635&lon=133.4635&layers=B0000TFFFFFTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTT&dp=IDC10000&p_nccObsCode=200&p_display_type=dataFile

This is important information if considering harvesting rainwater but do not expect to collect the entire amount of rain that falls on your roof 'catchment' area. Evaporation alone could account for an initial .5 to 1 mm loss. Also be aware that downpipes do not always harvest equal roof areas. Also consider the direction that most of the weather comes from. If there is a large tree that puts a roof area in a rain shadow, yield will be poor. If possible, harvest roof areas that gain most benefit from the direction of the prevailing weather.

Re getting quotes; this is the hard part and there are few experts. To save BIG money when installing tanks, householders need to take charge and avoid going in like lambs to the slaughter.

Things you can do:
Lay the tank and pump base yourself or ask a friend to help. If concreting, don't forget the Reo!
Have the outside power point already fitted. When you use your own electrician, you can pre book him to do other jobs while he is there.
Have the tank and pump in place before the plumber arrives.
Do your homework and buy the tank and pump (with a large pressure tank) yourself. Carefully consider the position, height and size of all tank fittings.
Check these forums for other advice.

Posted Saturday 7 Aug 2010 @ 7:11:28 am from IP #
gully
Member

Disagree with you Ecobowser about your figures - which isn't suprising given you're marketing a grey water system

I've got a 10,000L tank plumbed to the toilet/laundry with a family of 4. Our tank never drops under 5,000L (over summer) and we wash cars and use it for gardening.

Solar star is right, with the right water efficiency in the house, there's not that much grey water to use, and it's much more complicated than rainwater.

Posted Monday 9 Aug 2010 @ 1:04:59 am from IP #
ghostgum
Member

We have about 300m2 of roof (including eaves), feeding 10000 litres of tank plumbed to toilet and laundry. This is also used for watering the fernery and vegie patch during summer. The lawn is mostly watered direct from clouds, but when it starts to brown in summer (Melbourne), we use a grey water diversion system. If it has rained in the last week, then we don't put grey water on the lawn because it doesn't need it.

If we weren't using the rain water on the garden, then a smaller 3000-5000 litre tank would have been adequate. We calculated that we needed 10000 litres to last an almost two month dry spell in a Melbourne summer. Our tank sits above 80% for most of the year, using an average of 150 litres of water per day. The top loading washing machine uses lots of water.

We couldn't use any more grey water. Given that we only use it on the lawn and only use it intermittently, a simple diversion system is sufficient. The garden is mostly native and doesn't need watering in summer. Any run-off from the fernery ends end up in the pond, so grey water can't be used because it would exacerbate the algae problem and be unhealthy for the recently arrived growling grass frog.

Posted Monday 9 Aug 2010 @ 1:38:41 am from IP #
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