Greywater/rainwater recovery

fifthofwhisky

I am thinking to set up a grey water/rainwater recovery system to capture waste water for use in the garden, car washing, toilet flush, etc.

Thinking of a remote storage tank at the end of the garden with divert from bath/shower waste which could then be pumped from an intermediate tank to storage.

Has anyone done anything like this? I guess it is not so complicated but would be helpful to know what I need in the way of fittings, etc.

Furts

I have self built my home. High levels of insulation, energy efficient lighting and appliances, pv panels were all part of my thoughts. Grey water was not. I knew of an excellent expert in this area and he would have helped here but the bottom line was this. Why go to all the trouble and expense - tanks, electrics, filters, pumps and all replacement parts/ongoing maintenance when there is an obvious answer? Mains water is cheap and it can be used sparingly.

If you want grey water then simply store it off your roof and use it in the garden. No filters, no pumps, no pipework and no electrics feeding it into a home.

Gloomendoom

My ex neighbours built a couple of houses next to me as a money making project and installed massive underground rainwater tanks. The houses proved very difficult to sell. Apparently, one of the reasons was that potential buyer were suspicious of the complex rainwater system.

edwink

We have a rainwater/grey water harvesting system here which my husband installed with a friend. It works very well and we have certainly covered the cost of the install since. An added bonus of installing this is that we get an abatement/discount on our water bill as our grey water and rainwater does not go through the sewage system of our water company. Our abatement is 86% as our bath/shower water is collected in these tanks and also all of the rainwater from 4 sides of our house. We are metered and obviously pay for the mains water we use but only 14% for the sewage.

This is roughly how we achieved this. We were lucky enough to be given 2 x 1,000 litre industrial storage tanks. (can be purchased online). These are the type with have metal cages surrounding them. We linked them together by joining at the bottom with a rubber hose. One of the tanks has a DAB WELL pump with an automatic float system. The DAB well pumps come with a fitted plug therefore all we had to do was plug it in to an internal socket within the house. The plumbing side of it was done by connecting plastic pipe to our downstairs WC and also the upstairs bathroom. Every time we flush the pump is activated and the toilet is flushed.

When this system was installed we were concerned that we may run our of rainwater/grey water so we plumbed it in so we can actually switch over to mains water if needed for both toilets. We installed this system nearly 4 years ago and have not run out of water in the tanks so far. Being connected to the bath and shower grey water we are not likely to run out (2 adults live here) plus the amount of rain we get helps too.

Maintenance wise in the 3rd year we hoovered the tanks out completely with a pond hoover and cleaned the side walls of the tanks as a little algae had formed. Also we took out the well pump and cleaned round the filter etc..

The tanks are enclosed in a low wooden storage shed which was insulated with Polystyrene. We have access to these tanks via wooden doors at the front and also from the top whereby a part of the felt roof has access to each of the tanks. One of the tanks has an overflow which runs on to the garden. The tanks are sitting against a north facing wall right by our house next to the cloakroom wall.

There is another poster on here that has his tanks in his basement but for us not having that option didn't deter us from undertaking this project.

Our water bill total each year is around £84 for metered water and the little sewage we are charged for. Forgot to add that our kitchen sink waste, washing machine and dishwasher grey water runs in to a soak-a-way on our patio.

Hope that is some help to you.

Edwink

maisie_cat

Check with your water company before unless you are prepared to not get a discount. We have thames water sewerage and had all 4 sides of the roof going into 2000 litres of tank as well as the shower & bath. Thames water would not discount the sewerage. They said it was because the washing machine still went into the drains and it was all or nothing.