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Anyone save their grey water?

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Asta
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Anyone save their grey water?

Postby Asta » Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:41 pm

We're having a conservatory built on the back of the house, as part of this they'll have to do something with the drains from the kitchen sink and the washing machine. I was wondering about asking them if it's possible to get the water fed into a water butt to use in the garden. Would this cause a problem with the excess though? I'd have thought the waste water would have to go into the sewage system and not the ground water.

Anyone done this? How did you do it?

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doobykat
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Re: Anyone save their grey water?

Postby doobykat » Thu Jun 09, 2011 3:36 pm

Last I heard, the MIL was doing this - but mainly as where she's living in Aus they were having a major drought & as a result, had a total hose pipe usage ban.
She had it set up so that part of the outflow pipe was removable, so she could stick a container underneath it to collect the water as & when she needed it. I guess this would be a solution if you didn't want any excess grey water running everywhere if the water butt over-flowed, but it does mean you have to remember to go & collect the water from the washing machine/washing up.
Am not 100% sure that our grey water goes into the sewage system? They certainly go through two different pipes from the house & when DH was trying to sort out the patio drain hole, which leads to the groundwater system, it certainly looked like the water from the sinks/washing machine was following the same route...

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mangajude
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Re: Anyone save their grey water?

Postby mangajude » Thu Jun 09, 2011 4:00 pm

We haven't done this with grey water, however have done it will the run off from our gutter (grey water is on the wrong side of the house)

I asked my DH who looked into this for us, but as I said didn't work for us due to it being on the wrong side.

He says how it works for rain water (and I assume its basically the same for grey water) is you can get a kit like this:
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?a ... erter_kits

that sits around the same height as the top of the water butt. When the water goes above this it goes back down into the drain. When the level is below it, it goes into the butt, not human intervention needed.

Hope this is in anyway helpful!

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tiyuricc
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Re: Anyone save their grey water?

Postby tiyuricc » Thu Jun 09, 2011 4:11 pm

haven't done it for grey water but have 2 waterbutts joined to each other collecting the rainwater and overflow goes into the outside drain.

we're having an extension built at the moment and asked the builder to rig up the waterbutts again, he said he'd have to wait until after the last building inspection as the council dont like water butts. don't know why that is though.


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