Printable View
I was shocked to learn that my washing machine uses about 150-200l per load, so I did a bit of digging to find out about grey water usage.
I found a fantastic thing that processes and stores grey water so that you can use it whenever and wherever you want. Better than a rain water tank, they only work if it rains!
Check out http://www.perpetualwater.com.au. I thought it was the answer to my prayers, until I found out it costs about $15k....
Use of greywater is great. If you are going to do the lawn you may as well plumb up to your trees and shrubs also. We have been on level 4 for a while so we aren't allowed to water at all. The only thing I would add is you check out site http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/ for a list of friendly soaps that will be ok for natives etc. Also our local council offers a 'Water Bank' scheme where you buy extra water from town water and they then use that money to ship in water from another source to replenish the amount you have used.
nice lawn. We put down Sir Walter buffalo 2 years ago. I have no problem keeping it green with minimal watering (once per fortnight atm)
We have that Canberra blend stuff in the front yard, and its near impossible to keep green atm.
My advice is to consider the type of turf you are putting in before having to go to the expense of alterntive watering methods later.
But hey, its only my opinon. Best of luck with your quest.
We used to have very similar set-up to Stringy's......just for the washing machine mind you. WM pipe went out through the window and discharged into a plastic rubbish bin sitting on a couple of concrete blocks. A thru hull fitting from the boat shop in the bottom of the bin was connected to 15m of 1" poly pipe - water drained out onto the lawn via gravity. The bin never overflowed despite there being no lint filter on it.......worked just fine.
Don't do it any longer due to different house and better washing machine - we now have a front loader which uses less than half of what the top loader did.
It amuses me that these fancy grey water systems often cost more than a plain old septic or biocycle style system........which has to deal with real grubby water. Some-one is seeing you city people coming!!!!
Our shower drains out strait onto the lawn. We have various hose lengths we can attach and move around so we don't get get just one lush green spot. No affect from shampoos and soaps that we can see. We also let the washing machine run off straight onto the lawn. We used some black irrigation hosing with a cheap sprinkler at the end to spread the water about. Gives the birds a bit of a shock with all of a sudden water comes squirting out. We found the sprinkler attachment wasn't good for the shower run off though as there wasn't enough pressue for it to work effectively which resulted in the water backing up in the shower. We have a nice green lawn.:)
Update: In December I rigged up a simple gravity fed greywater system where every drop from the showers runs onto the front lawn...
Its simply PVC under the house and converts to black flex pipe once it gets outside...
like bec I move the house around daily to ensure the water is spread out evenly...
My lawn is still nice and green as in the previous pics :D
If water restrictions go up again I will have to work out something a little more elaborate to do the back lawn as its (unlike the front lawn) uphill :rolleyes:
What are peoples thoughts on the grey water pump such as these ones?
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/GREY-WATER-PU...QQcmdZViewItem
Joel
Seems a lot of effort to go to to save a bit of water:DQuote:
Originally Posted by JDub
Grey water is fantastic as long as you do not poisen your garden with additional salt of phosphrus that will kill native vegetation.
Check out http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/laundry.htm for washing machine detergent details. We will stop using Omomatic now I know most of it is filler.
cheers
How do you find the Sir Walter goes in winter, Tekskelator? I'm thinking of putting some in once the restrictions ease up a bit, but I've seen some that has yellowed off completely once the frosts hit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tekskelator
At the moment I'm trying to work out whether I could establish a new lawn during restrictions at the same time as trying to work out how to deal with surface water flooding from all the recent storms .:doh:
Try oversowing with oats. They establish fast, aerate the soil, protect the young turf from heavy sun and seeing as you keep mowing them (very high setting) they dont seed and rot away after the season.
A boorowa farmer taught me this and was how they got grass to grow on new dam walls and such in the heat.