Grey Water system

[Marschy]

Hello swaggers,

After watering my lawn at 4am this morning on this fresh 43° day in sunny Adelaide my lawn looks like it would probably cark it if this keeps up for a few more days without throwing heaps more water at it.

Does anyone out there have a grey water system installed using a diverter from your laundry sink? If so, I have a few questions.

1. What do you store the water in i.e. are you using single or multiple tanks/wheelie bins (one for sullage, one for overflow)
2. What do you use to filter lint and hair.
3. How do you deliver the water to where you need it, i.e. pump/drip/gravity.
4. What sort of pump are you using, i.e. submersible/centrifugal
5. Do you use water level switches to automatically control the pump

Any other information would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Marschy

[WilSurf]

I don't have a grey water system but I have looked at it in the past.
From memory you are not allowed to store the grey water, unless it is in an approved system.

[Marschy]

The idea is to pump the grey water out of the tank/wheelie bin as soon as it reaches as certain level and turnoff when it reaches another. I won't be storing the water.

[Doug.b]

Marschy

I Don't think that you can store grey water as it is health risk?
The only way is connect a grey water hose to the washing machine hose and dump it on the grass, this is what I have done before.

Doug.

[gibbo301]

I have a grey water tank it's a concrete underground one and is conected to the kitchen sink the shower and the laundry with a sullage pump that that has a float switch that empties when it gets to a certain level.       The kitchen sink goes into a grease trap before it gets to the tank.

[Doug.b]

Some info for you
http://www.savewater.com.au/how-to-save-water/in-the-garden/sustaining-gardens-in-dry-times/greywater

[Hodgies]

Ours is the same as Gibbos.
We move the hose around to where it will reach, nice and green and the rest of 2 acres is brown.

[Pog]

Sometimes Rules are made to be broken. Rules regarding Grey water were dreamt up by some govt employed idiot.

Back in 2007, I connected my kitchen sink, laundry and bath room to a plastic 200ltr drum that I buried in the lawn. I then installed a $150 submersible pump with its own float switch which then dumps the water onto the lawn, or into garden beds.

I am able to have a healthy looking garden, but don't have to use a lot of very expensive SA Water to achieve it.

I have young children, and they know not to play with that hose, or to go near the water when it discharges. The pump goes off twice a Day on average, and discharges about 150 ltrs a time. It takes about 70 - 90 seconds to pump out the 150ltrs.

I have not noticed any adverse effects on the garden from 6 yrs of using this water.

[austastar]

Hi,
   Mother in law lived in Qld, and was on tanks and septic.
Before the grey water plumbing met the septic plumbing, it went into a concrete tank of about 200L which had a concrete lid on the surface of the lawn.
The lid had a hole of about 30mm, through which could be lowered the inlet pipe from a small electric pump mounted on a piece of plank.


Watering involved placing the pump on the lid with the intake pipe lowered into the grey water, turn on the pump and water the garden.


It did stink a bit, on warm evenings with the whole neighbourhood  watering a sweet-sickly aroma hung over the whole area.


If you didn't water, the grey water simply overflowed into the septic tank and then on to the septic trench grid further down the hill.


cheers

[Dingo0163]

Double post

[Dingo0163]

Mine is the same as Gibbo's as well. I use a grey water pump from Aldies or Bunnings. I pick them up for $60-70 . The one currently in the tank has been going for two years. I zip tie the lead from the switch to the handle and lower it to about 200 mm from the bottom. This way it keeps it from sucking the sludge from the bottom. It is ok to let the water run on the ground around fruit trees but do NOT use a sprinkler around them. It will kill the trees. I know someone that done that. 

[Nay-DMAX]

Hi Marshy we were using similar we had a wheelie bin with a submersible pump from bunnings and had a grey water hose running from the washing machine into the bin and a garden hose running off the submersible pump we would usually run the hose out into the paddocks or sometimes on the back yard there would be a small amount of lint come out.  Since we got front loader washing machine though it was not sending enough water through to the bin and trying to pump it out there was causing the pump on the washing machine to have an error come up.  At the moment the grey water hose is running straight from the machine onto the back lawn.  We have no outside water only tanks so brown lawns here a lot.

[WilSurf]

How do you guys run a hose from the washing mchine outside?
Dril a hole in the brick wall?

[Nay-DMAX]

How do you guys run a hose from the washing mchine outside?
Dril a hole in the brick wall?

Ah could of explained that more at the moment there is not a laundry sink in there so we run the hose straight down the pipe and out from under the house but no brick walls here. Not sure what we will do once the sink goes in maybe just another hole in the floor to run it out.