dukeofargy

Later in the summer, we will be banned from watering lawns and even flower beds at all. We are encouraged to use only drought tolerant plants. We are able to have baths though, hence the original question.

lorax

Building on what Chong said, if you're serious about using your bathwater for irrigation, a catchment barrel makes really good sense. You can also then put a small passive filtration system on the line, which should eliminate some of the chemicals and stuff that you're concerned about. In Ecuador, the most common system is an inline three, with sand/zeolite in the first stage, ceramic in the second, and activated charcoal in the third. You probably will need a pump, though, if you're going to level or above grade from the tub. It's not that difficult to divert the drainline, though.

The house I'm currently designing incorporates greywater catchment and filtration (for irrigation use) from the bathrooms, and greywater settling and organic reclamation from the kitchen via planted filtration pools (the pool in the last step serves for growing Tilapia and rice). If you're serious about retrofitting, I can send you some drawings and possible ways to go about it if you'd like.

dukeofargy

Lorax, thank you for your input. What you are doing reminds me of what Prince Charles did in England in his home palace He used rushes to cleans the grey water. I applaud your efforts. Unfortunately, I don't think that I can do this here, where I am now.

I was researching on soft water, and this is some of what I found, mainly from wikipedia. There still seems to be a concern about the salt.

"The idea behind a water softener is simple. The calcium and magnesium ions in the water are replaced with sodium ions. Since sodium does not precipitate out in pipes or react badly with soap, both of the problems of hard water are eliminated. To do the ion replacement, the water in the house runs through a bed of small plastic beads or through a chemical matrix called zeolite. The beads or zeolite are covered with sodium ions. As the water flows past the sodium ions, they swap places with the calcium and magnesium ions. Eventually, the beads or zeolite contain nothing but calcium and magnesium and no sodium, and at this point they stop softening the water. It is then time to regenerate the beads or zeolite.

Regeneration involves soaking the beads or zeolite in a stream of sodium ions. Salt is sodium chloride, so the water softener mixes up a very strong brine solution and flushes it through the zeolite or beads (this is why you load up a water softener with salt). The strong brine displaces all of the calcium and magnesium that has built up in the zeolite or beads and replaces it again with sodium. The remaining brine plus all of the calcium and magnesium is flushed out through a drain pipe. Regeneration can create a lot of salty water, by the way -- something like 25 gallons (95 liters).

A water softener reduces the dissolved calcium, magnesium, and to some degree manganese and ferrous iron ion concentration in hard water.

These "hardness ions" cause three major kinds of undesired effects. Most visibly, metal ions react with soaps and calcium-sensitive detergents, hindering their ability to lather and forming a precipitate—the familiar "bathtub ring". Presence of "hardness ions" also inhibits the cleaning effect of detergent formulations. Secondly, calcium and magnesium carbonates tend to adhere to the surfaces of pipes and heat exchanger surfaces. The resulting build-up of scale can restrict water flow in pipes. In boilers, the deposits act as an insulation that impairs the flow of heat into water, reducing the heating efficiency and allowing the metal boiler components to overheat. In a pressurized system, this can lead to failure of the boiler. Thirdly, the presence of ions in an electrolyte, in this case, hard water, can also lead to galvanic corrosion, in which one metal will preferentially corrode when in contact with another type of metal, when both are in contact with an electrolyte.

Conventional water-softening devices intended for household use depend on an ion-exchange resin in which "hardness" ions trade places with sodium ions that are electrostatically bound to the anionic functional groups of the polymeric resin. A class of minerals. zeolites, also exhibits ion-exchange properties. These minerals were widely used in earlier water softeners. Water softeners are typically required when the source of water is a well, whether municipal or private.

For people on a low-sodium diet, the increase in sodium levels (for systems releasing sodium) in the water can be significant, especially when treating very hard water. A paper by Kansas State University gives an example: "A person who drinks two liters (2L) of softened, extremely hard water (assume 30 gpg) will consume about 480 mg more sodium (2L x 30 gpg x 8 mg/L/gpg = 480 mg), than if unsoftened water is consumed." This is a significant amount, as they state: "The American Heart Association (AHA) suggests that the 3 percent of the population who must follow a severe, salt-restricted diet should not consume more than 400 mg of sodium a day. AHA suggests that no more than 10 percent of this sodium intake should come from water. The EPA’s draft guideline of 20 mg/L for water protects people who are most susceptible." Most people who are concerned with the added sodium in the water generally have one faucet in the house that bypasses the softener, or have a reverse osmosis unit installed for the drinking water and cooking water, which was designed for desalinisation of sea water."

magicgreen

Whewwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I only have 1 lifetime!
Unless budda is correct.

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damaclese

OK this has been my experience with soft water. some plants will take it and others don't. for example i never ever use it on any of my acid loving plants. probably goes with out saying. iv almost killed several of my bog plants using it. i think it depends on what kind of salts you are using. frankly id just skip using it. here in Vegas most out side water taps are put in before the soft water loops so there just plane water. the soil here is highly alkaline to begin with. i spend big bucks trying to sweeting the soil.

as for this gray water thing! i have some comments. first off using gay water on food crops is strictly forbidden in commercial application in the US because of the potential for Fecal ecoli contamination. (remember the spinach incident last year) how ever if you have Small children or pets id think twice. they play in the dirt and as if mentioned already the poetical for fecal ecoli contamination is vary high. remember it only takes as Little as 600 fecal ecoli bacteria to be fatal to a Small child or an older person. this i know for working in food service for over 20 years. iv only mentioned one bacterium here but theres literally 100s that could be present in any contaminated water. and that would take about a 10 pages to go in to. so bottom line you would also have to take special precautions to work with the soil ie. gloves as well as covering all your exposed skin. if conditions were windy maybe even a face mask to prevent breathing in contaminate soil.

and i mean this for your own safety Please do not use gray water for your yard. secondly
if you check with you local Heath dept. in your meager municipalities. I'm pretty sure you will find that this is expressly forbidden in a residential area.
most golf courses have special permits to use gay water and it is strictly regulate not only by
the USDA but also by OSHA and the local City State and county officials. and knowing the Government I'm sure lots of other dept that we don't even know about!
and for those of your that play golf they have posted in some place in or around the golf course warnings about gray water contamination and the risks to your health. along with guidelines about not coming in to contact with the soil and or plants on the courses

OK Iv spell checked this but there lots of technical words that it did not know so sorry just try to go with it

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damaclese

Clark county water district polices for privet irrigation you can water with a hose any time or day or night 365 days a year for auto irrigation system each property is assigned a specific day or days of the week depending on time of year
winter water schedule one time per week
throw march first summer is twice a day for 10 mints before 6am and after 9pm no water is aloud to spill on to pavement or the street there is no penalty for not fallowing thees guide lines except you get a nasty letter for the water district and basically a nabour would have to have complained they only investigate complaints there are no (water police) lol the only means of enforcement is by a tired billing the first 5000gal of water is billed at under 2$ per 100 yard ft that really and i don't know the conversion quite low after that 5000 gal tiers it starts to get expensive one summer we had are main water ling brake and we had a bill for over 490$ i almost had a hart attack but throw much negotiations we got that cut in haft
on average my bill is ruffly 45$ a month but i have 100% new energy star appliances that conserve water OK now I'm just rambling sorry about that
this is a vary politically charged subject here in Vegas theirs something about the water in the paper every day are water district is out of control we are at the Mercy of the polices that favor the casinos if you want to start a fight just mention the lake out front of the balagio lol thats gray water by the way stinks to high heaven don't let it get on your skin if you all are watching the fountain show
for those of you that are interested there are Meany articles about water and its history in the south west and along the Colorado water basin see water wars
its fascinating if not a bit of topic there Meany story regarding the use of military trope between the stats of California and Nevada over alleged illegal theft of water

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lorax

Well, as I think I mentioned I put my greywater through fairly rigorous filtration before it hits my yard, so I'm fairly confident that any fecal coliforms or other nastiness are gone from it before my nanners get it. I change my filters monthly.

damaclese

sorry lorax i didn't see that i skimmed some of the post but i was strictly addressing the use of gray water in the United States are health codes could be different then yours and there are defiantly rural areas of the US were I'm sure there are not any specific local codes pertaining to the use of gray water but being as this is a international forum and Meany of the participates are American as well as European i thought it necessary to point at some of the health and well as legal risk uncorrected USDA violation can run as high As 10,000.00$ per violation per day which is a heck of a lot more expensive than the average water bill

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lorax

No worries. I was more trying to point out that in order to safely use greywater it's advisable to filter it first.

And Ecuador doesn't really have many restrictions on water use. The recollection I do is more because I'm concerned about pollution; we get so much rain here (in most parts of the country) that I barely need to irrigate.

chong

Pauly,
While you point out the serious threat regarding effluents from building water use, you need to distinguish between “graywater” and “blackwater” plumbing systems. A graywater system is never connected to water closets(toilet), urinals, nor to kitchen sinks. Blackwater system is where the discharges from these 3 fixtures are piped to. Therefore, any graywater system, as defined, can be discharged to the property for irrigation purposes. However, construction of a graywater system requires a permit and inspection by the local authority having jurisdiction.

The Code does not even require filtration of any kind. But if you want to, no one will stop you. So for the purpose of discussion, graywater systems cannot contain fecal matter if the definition of graywater system is met. It is up to the building user to ensure strict adherence to the requirements of the system, e.g., washing/rinsing soiled diapers, etc., should be done in a fixture not connected to the graywater system. If you just want to save bathwater and convey it to your garden, it is my opinion that there would be no harm. In the Philippines, since our laundry woman washes clothes outside, water from the laundry process flows out to a corner of our property where we had mats of Lacatan, Saba and Praying Hands bananas, plus a large Ponderosa Sapodilla tree. We had very big, sweetest bananas and sapodilla ever.

Graywater systems generally are only allowable in residential construction, though in certain localities, it may be allowed in commercial buildings,also, as in some AK towns.

I’ve designed many graywater systems in the North Slope Burrough, where water is scarce, especially in the wintertime. Only the blackwater is collected by the Sewage Utility company for treatment. Graywater is collected and disposed of, untreated, in designated areas, where the treated sewage is disposed of. In fire stations, the graywater tank provides secondary source of water for firetrucks.

Those manmade “lakes” or large ponds near hotels/casinos in NV are water retention systems and double as a source of water for fire fighting purposes. In fact, it is a requirement for construction of certain volume of occupancy. The reason they stink is seagull/bird droppings and are stagnant. Technically, the operators of the pond need to aerate the ponds by creating fountains, or cascading the water in a waterfall. However, doing so would increase the rate of evaporation, thus depleting the water content faster. I know this because I've done some "pond" upgrades for several large hotels in Reno and Vegas in the late 80s.

Chironex

Hi Chong,
Where are you in the Phils? My girlfriend is in Tacloban City. I am planning a visit late this year or next.

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chong

Hello Scot,
I'm currently in Seattle, WA and have made my home here since 1966. My work has taken me all over the US, Canada, Mexico, and Asia. Sometimes for extended periods, sometimes, just for field visits or inspections. Like from 2004 through 2006, I had been chasing hurricanes in support of FEMA assistance.

I am from the Manila area but have lived in the Bicol region and Bulacan province as well. Tacloban is the major city of the island Province of Leyte, probably 350miles south of Manila. 22 hours by bus, 16 hours by private vehicle, 1 hour by commercial airline. That is the island where Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed, when he "returned" to the Philippines to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. The women there are sweet, loving and fiercely protective of kin. Anywhere in the Philippines, you will find that most people are warm and friendly, always eager to please, especially, with visitors. Do not be surprised if you are invited to eat at every home that you visit. That is the second greeting that you will normally hear after the the initial welcome.

When you're there, make sure that you sample Lacatan, Señorita, and Bungulan bananas. They are a great treat!

Contact me several weeks before you go if you want pointers on how to bring plants, esp. banana corms back to the US without a permit. Legally!

damaclese

Chong you defiantly have good points and I'm probably being paranoid. but all put it to you this way. living in a city that promotes greed and a lack of social responsibility as well as a place were doctors knowing reuse signal dose vials on multiple patients infecting them with HIV and Hep C as well as a place were people that have lost every thing and are most likely in the bottom third of the IQ scale deiced to move to would you want to live withing 15 ft of a guy thats supposed to be designing installing and maintaining a gray water system

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mskitty38583

sad but true.

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CookieCows

I like the idea of the bath water keeping the slugs and bugs away and saving on water! I'm going to try it and see how it goes. Not on the nanas though. Don't have enough to use any as test pilots!

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dukeofargy

I have been using the bath water on my brugmansia plants, cannas and dahlias every 2nd day. They don't seem any worse for it. I have used a mild solution ( 1 handfull of epsom salts: 2 gallons of water ) once a month, and they all LOVE it.

microfarmer

The drip needs a steady 20-35 psi. A mag drive submersible pond pump will push the water up a long way, but it won't do it under that kind of pressure. It would work well to pump from a holding reservoir to a trickle down type terraced planting, filling basins on the way down like a fountain. You would need a better pump to generate good pressure for the drip.

I'm sure there are things you can put in the holding tank that will take care of growths of any kind, but be harmless to plants.

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