Flyover
Trying not to screw things up worse
@Sparky617 You can't even route gray water to toilet tanks?
I can't speak to what is permissible everywhere. Here you could not run a separate water system to reuse gray water. If you wanted to capture it in a bucket, say from your washing machine and use it to manually flush a toilet I'm sure they couldn't stop you. But to actually plumb a tank into the system, along with a pump and pressure tank to move it through pipes and a separate piping system to your toilets for using gray water, that would be illegal.@Sparky617 You can't even route gray water to toilet tanks?
Ah, interesting. Also about the reclaimed water system in your town.But to actually plumb a tank into the system, along with a pump and pressure tank to move it through pipes and a separate piping system to your toilets for using gray water, that would be illegal.
Yeah, that was the main thing I was thinking of. Well, not irrigation or even watering grass, but watering plants/flushing toilets.It saves you on sewage charges if you have a irrigation system. Plus you're not wasting potable water on grass.
If you are on public sewers they want all the water back they send out and using it twice in most of the country will not produce enough savings to be worth the expense IMO.
I was down in Mexico on business a number of years ago and in a new modern factory. I went in the men’s room and was puzzled as each stall had a covered waste basket and on the door was a sign showing a wad of TP and the toilet with the red circle and line thru it “No” symbol and next to it the basket with the wad of TP going into it from a hand. I sat there for some time thinking what exactly do they want me to do here. I got brave and peaked in the can and yes that’s what they wanted me to do alright.In many areas, especially in the arid west reclaimed systems make a lot of sense. Watering golf courses, yards, roadway plantings with precious drinking water makes no sense. They might be able to use reclaimed water on certain crops but you can't use it on some of the stuff California is really good a growing like produce. I think to use it on those would require another step in the reclamation process. I see signs out in the SF Bay area that announce that many of the roadside plantings are being watered with reclaimed water.
Trying to save the water from our washing machine and possibly showers might produce enough water to flush one of our toilets consistently. With just my wife and me in the house now and using a front loading washer I doubt we'd get enough to make it worthwhile if it was even allowed. We're on public water and sewers.
I saw a show on a waste treatment plant in our country where the discharge water into the river was 10 times cleaner than the drinking water spec of the plant next door. They asked why was the water being dumped in the river rather than piped to the drinking water treatment plant? The answer was who wants to drink cleaned up sewer water. To that I thought I guess the next town down river.
I would think (hope) showering figures in there somewhere...The vast majority of residential water is for flushing toilets and clothes washing.
This may change as technology changes. And in poor countries where the citizens have long standing immunity to caca, it's not necessary.It would but it is generally not allowed. Even diverting your washing machine away from your septic tank is illegal. It was done quite frequently, running it directly into the leach field to not dilute the bacteria in the tank digesting the black water. But it isn't legal.
With low flow shower heads unless you're taking 20 minute showers you're not using a lot of water. A top loading clothes washer uses around 50 gallons a load. A modern toilet uses 1.5 gallons per flush, if it flushes everything in one try. Most people use the toilet more times per day than a shower. A 5 minute shower would use less than 10 gallons of water. Hence my statement. If you're a regular bath taker you probably use 30 gallons a bath.I would think (hope) showering figures in there somewhere...
50 gallons a load for clothes washer sounds really high. Are you sure about that?With low flow shower heads unless you're taking 20 minute showers you're not using a lot of water. A top loading clothes washer uses around 50 gallons a load. A modern toilet uses 1.5 gallons per flush, if it flushes everything in one try. Most people use the toilet more times per day than a shower. A 5 minute shower would use less than 10 gallons of water. Hence my statement. If you're a regular bath taker you probably use 30 gallons a bath.
Look at the size of the tub in a top loader. Throw a five gallon bucket of water in it and see how full it gets. In most wash cycles you fill it twice, once to wash and once to rinse. Front loaders use less water, by a wide margin. When we had 2 kids in the house we probably did 10 loads a week. Low flow shower heads limit you to about 1.5 - 2.5 gpm.50 gallons a load for clothes washer sounds really high. Are you sure about that?
Meanwhile, it feels like a 5 minute shower uses more than 10 gallons of water though of course I haven't checked, and most showers in my house are about twice that long.
I'm willing to believe you're right just because you've probably looked at the numbers and I know I haven't. Just thinking about how if I am trying to fill a bucket with water, it takes more water to fill it if the bucket is empty than if the bucket has a couple towels stuffed in it. Displacement. When I do laundry my machine is usually at least 2/3 full, and it has one of those "auto sensors" that varies how much water it uses based on how full it is (though I admit I don't know how it works, and it locks the lid so I can't peek, so it might be a scam).Look at the size of the tub in a top loader. Throw a five gallon bucket of water in it and see how full it gets
Here is an article about it. Newer top loaders without an agitator use less water than older machines down to around 20 gallons versus 40 or more in a model that is 20 years old. My brother has one of the new top loaders and it seems to be more like a front loader but does use more water.I'm willing to believe you're right just because you've probably looked at the numbers and I know I haven't. Just thinking about how if I am trying to fill a bucket with water, it takes more water to fill it if the bucket is empty than if the bucket has a couple towels stuffed in it. Displacement. When I do laundry my machine is usually at least 2/3 full, and it has one of those "auto sensors" that varies how much water it uses based on how full it is (though I admit I don't know how it works, and it locks the lid so I can't peek, so it might be a scam).
But "gray water system is probably a no go", got that part loud and clear by now.
On my bathroom sinks and to a lesser extent the shower drain it isn't so much the trap as the tail pipe directly below the drain. These get scummed up from soap scum, shampoo, toothpaste spit, hair and god knows what else. I've had slow drains and usually the trap is clear, it is the tail pipe getting closed with this slow build up. If I remember I try to throw a large pot of boiling water down these drains every few months to hopefully take some of the build up away. The gel type drain cleaners tend to do a decent job since they stick to this material.@Sparky617 My washer is maybe 4 or 5 years old, so that's good to know. Also for next time I'm in the market, this would bias me more toward front-loaders.
@bud16415 That's a good point! I was thinking the water from my sink, if I collected it once in a bucket, would look basically clear and clean -- but you're right, I have no further to look than the P trap to see exactly what the cumulative effect would be.
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