You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Just got the bill from the water Co. and it says we used 54 m3 of water in the last 195 days, or 100 tons of water a year 😯
Just trying to visualise 100 of these IBCs
[img] 
[/img]
It seemed like an awful lot of water.
[url= http://www.ccwater.org.uk/savewaterandmoney/averagewateruse/ ]But apparently, we, as a family of four are relatively conservative water users[/url], despite the boys having a shallowish bath every night. I guess slow volume toilet cisterns do keep consumption down. Afterall, it does seem mad that we use clean, treated water to flush away our poo...
When I built the barn though, I plumbed in most of the WCs to run on a secondary supply (either rain or grey water) if I wanted to. But payback on the hardware [url= http://www.rainwaterharvesting.co.uk/house-and-garden-systems-with-management-dak3/balmoral-tank-5455-litre-complete-system-3-above-ground/bwst-v5455-dak3/ ](about £2k for kit)[/url] would be something like 20yrs on the amount of water saved (say, about half of our £24 per month water bill). So I never did it.
I have been thinking about going for a cheaper DIY system using a negative head pump and an IBC like above ^ which I could probably do for a few hundred quid. Maybe I ought to look again at doing that.
Does anyone here have a rainwater/greywater system?
I keep thinking you could take the sink, bath / shower outflow and use it to top up a 100l tank which then was used to flush the loos. You'd only need a small storage tank for that.
Grey water. Makes sense really. Using Chlorinated water for the bogs is pretty #FirstWorldProblem really, eh?
I keep thinking you could take the sink, bath / shower outflow and use it to top up a 100l tank which then was used to flush the loos. You'd only need a small storage tank for that.
+1
We use grey water a lot in accommodation type builds (schools, hospitals, prisons etc). Huge push for maximum water recycling.
We can get water use down by about 30-50%. It's all filtered/disinfected.
No idea how the cost would work out on a residential scale, but we normally get pay back within 5 years or so.
Worth checking if there are any gov initiatives for water recycling that might help offset the cost?
Geothermal heating/cooling is another that we've seen become very popular recently, but it's not particularly cost effective, it's mainly to help people hit environmental targets. Cool concept though.
intercepting grey water is a bit trickier than intercepting rainwater - Id need to open up the bathroom floor, separate shower/bath outflow from soil waste and install a new waste outflow to a collection.
Rainwater on the other hand can be intercepted at the downpipe.
The expensive bit over an above the tank and pump system is the mains switch over kit that has to satisfy water regs.
I was thinking a couple of IBCs linked together near the main rain water downpipe (and conveniently next to the outdoor tap) could be topped up in summer with mains water from the outdoor tap and hose periodically. The outdoor tap has a reg-required non return valve, so there would be no contamination issues. Would just have to remove the hose from the tank after each top up.
The outdoor tap has a reg-required non return valve
Is there any way to make that happen automatically. Like a ball valve but where it only kicks in below a certain level rather than keeping topped up? Provided it includes a non return valve why would you need a manual hose solution?
you may not have a permanently connected contamination source (hose lying in water eg.) without air gaps and non return valves etc and loads of stuff Ive forgotten from the water regs.
You can build your own regs compliant mains switchover using cisterns above each other etc, but its a pain. Id rather just pop outside and have a look at the water level!
however proper kit boxes are a lot less htna they were when I first looked at this 3 years ago.
this back up box is only £190
http://www.rainwaterharvesting.co.uk/rainwater-control-units/rain-backup-in-a-box-sd/rwh-bub02/
In fact, with that back up box, and this negative head pressure switch pump for another £350
http://www.rainwaterharvesting.co.uk/pumps/hydroforce-series-3-pump/rwh-hyd03fl/
and two s/h IBCs for about £40 each, I could add 2,000 L of rainwater system to the barn for around £700 ish. So maybe payback in <6yrs perhaps?
Might be worth trying.
intercepting grey water is a bit trickier than intercepting rainwater - Id need to open up the bathroom floor, separate shower/bath outflow from soil waste and install a new waste outflow to a collection.
All the outflows in our house exit the wall and join the main soil pipe outside, so redirecting would be very easy...
That is a nicely packaged version of what I was suggesting. If I'd seen that a few years ago I'd have one.
@flaps: mines all neat and tidy and done in the floor voids 🙂
Just Google is Australian stoner (.com.au) it's fairly common.
The outdoor tap has a reg-required non return valve, so there would be no contamination issues. Would just have to remove the hose from the tank after each top up.
nope, type a airgap required
grey water is fine until someone makes a cross connection then you have a public health issue
air gap comes from filling the tank from the hose periodically, much the same as when you fill a bucket of water. Permanent installations would require an air gap.
Back in the 70s when I was designing sewerage, we estimated 100l per person per day. Today it's apparently up around 150 or so. You are on about 75l per person per day.
You must be filthy.
You must be filthy
*Sniffs pits *
Saving the planet one smell at a time.
no sketches? no plans? no diagrams? not even a pie chart? come on fellas.
4/10
Water companies estimates vary between an average of around 120 litres per head per day through 150-160ish. Yours is pretty good, there may well be a bit of water companies hiding leakage in those figures too.
Go to the states or middle east they'll be up in the 300's so not so bad here really.
Looks good. Can you install it in late spring please - I'd quite like a drought summer for 2015
150l a day is what we work on in sewage - from the British Water standards (Flows and Loads v4), that is per head. Done a bit of work on rainwater harvesting, but not yet had much to do with grey water... probably as it rains so much in the Lakes!
Do we work for the same water company then?
I like the idea of capturing rainwater for the bog. At the moment we capture rainwater from the roof in two big barrels that I tend to use to water the vegetable beds but I'm sure we could easily get it up to the bathroom. Tricky part is having an auto switch to mains if they run dry I guess.