The Switch
Jan. 7th, 2009 03:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
errantemberDuring a visit by my mother recently, the kitchen sink clogged. With much Drain-O, snaking, hot water and plunging, we *finally* managed to get it unstuck after two days of doing dishes in plastic tubs. This was a forceful reminder of the utility of my Kitchen Sink Water Reuse Project. I'd like to take the water from the sink and run it through a constructed wetland before using it to irrigate my yard and/or vegetables. If it had been even started when we had this problem, we could have solved it with the flip of a switch.
It's free water available 365 days a year, and if you use the right environmentally safe detergents, it's completely safe. I'd also like to do the same with the laundry water. I recently made progress toward this goal by scoring a $300 black plastic fountain cistern (with some extra vampire-tap irrigation tubing) for $30 at the Habitat Restore. Yay re-use! I just ordered the switch valve necessary to be able to switch the sink output from the city to the yard. At some point in the near future, I'll have to investigate how, exactly, we're going to get a pipe out through the front wall of the house, which has a somewhat inconveniently placed limestone vernier. Some kind of Math will, unfortunately, also be necessary to determine how much water will come from both sources. Eventually, I'll have to have some clue as the the evaporation rate of the system when finished, which, naturally, is completely impossible without actually finishing the system first.
No matter.
After installing the valve, the next step is probably to get the line run to the outside of the house, put the cistern there, and then keep track of how much water we use in a week. In the meantime, I'll probably be referencing the excellent Building and Oasis With Greywater by Art Ludwig, which has estimates for average water usages.
It's free water available 365 days a year, and if you use the right environmentally safe detergents, it's completely safe. I'd also like to do the same with the laundry water. I recently made progress toward this goal by scoring a $300 black plastic fountain cistern (with some extra vampire-tap irrigation tubing) for $30 at the Habitat Restore. Yay re-use! I just ordered the switch valve necessary to be able to switch the sink output from the city to the yard. At some point in the near future, I'll have to investigate how, exactly, we're going to get a pipe out through the front wall of the house, which has a somewhat inconveniently placed limestone vernier. Some kind of Math will, unfortunately, also be necessary to determine how much water will come from both sources. Eventually, I'll have to have some clue as the the evaporation rate of the system when finished, which, naturally, is completely impossible without actually finishing the system first.
No matter.
After installing the valve, the next step is probably to get the line run to the outside of the house, put the cistern there, and then keep track of how much water we use in a week. In the meantime, I'll probably be referencing the excellent Building and Oasis With Greywater by Art Ludwig, which has estimates for average water usages.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 02:18 pm (UTC)