grey water

[simple life]

I'm wondering if anyone has a grey water system? When we move to our land we want to do this. There is a lagoon for the sewer or we'll have a composting toilet, and then grey water for the other water uses.

If you have one what soap did you use? We'd like to be able to use the water for the garden/crops, but the soap, including laundry soap, needs to be safe for that.

Also how did you do it? Thoughts, ideas, pointers?

Julie

[kriket]

we are urbanites, but have a basic grey water system.

sewer is black water, I would compost you can't reuse flushings.

what we do is. Our house is very small, and we have no basement, and when we moved in about half of everything was broken, so I just made what works for us.

Kitchen sink - I have a filter box with 3 screens then some pantyhose to catch what the screens didn't most gets caught in the top strainer. Then there is an outlet to a buried irrigation line. So far, I have not had to dig up my line from clogs. Keep your fingers crossed.

Washing machine - I have a lint trap (pantyhose) that is pumped into the toilet bowl. This situation isn't ideal for me. But DH is resistant to humanure. I have installed an overflow on the storage tank here to the sewer I try to just do one load a day (about what we flush) but sometimes I need to do more laundry

I don't stress too much about the laundry soap because my system isn't ideal. If I was sending it to a leach bed, I would probably use soap nuts.

Forgot to add, in the spring when it is super rainy, I have to bypass the sink back to the sewer. It's just too wet and we only have 15/100ths of an acre Just not enough space to deal with that much water

[talia rose]

Bio-Pac is the one we have found that is actually bio-compatable, which is what you want to look for....

[Green_Ma_4]

Hey ya
We havea a grey water system here on our farm and I think it is proably one of the best ways to go if your conscious of what your putting down the drain.

Toliets - we are a septic bed for these, two in fact. They were in place when we bought the house. When they break down however we will be replacing everything with a more eco friendly alternative. Not sure which one yet.

Bathtub, kitchen sink, bathroom sinks : All go to one of the grey water "holding beds" for lack of a better term. They are hooked into pipiing through the floor of our basement then meet up with a natural spring which runds constantly fluching all the water from these things into an area at the side of the house.

Washer: runs the same way but into another area. same central area as the above but different piping . They all sort of meet up together and have made a bit of a swamp areas at the side with a constant flor of spring water to help the breakdown.
It looks gorgeous with all the bulrushes and march type flowers that grow there. That being said when we first bought this house, the grey water system was already in place (LUCK!) and the previous owner didnt take care of what he poured down the sink so when we bought it 3 years ago , it didnt look as nice. Its very important that your careful about what you pass down. We also have three creeks on our property and one of them runs about 30 feet from our "swamp" so we have to be even more careful about what we send down the drain as not to effect the creek and its wonders.
We only use vinegar and BS for cleaning, bio and organic dish soap and I have yet to find a laundry detergent that is both respoonsiable and does its job .
anyway this has turned out to belong winded...lol
Hope that helps
Sarah

edited to add...
and a bit of a side. People dont think about this much but you also have to be careful with the scrap food that you send down your sink, expecially if your not eating organic. The chemicals and stuff that can be found in processed foods and the hormones that can be found in meats can add up and effect your ecosystem. I havent read anything that backs that thought of mine, but it made me wonder when I saw peices of beef that we ate 6 months prior still sitting in the sand bed of the resting area. We are gradually becaome 100 percent orrganic, but it really made me stop and think.