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If it's yellow, let it mellow and RO is the devil

dw1305 said:
I don't use RO for this reason, and also try and do as much as I can to reduce water wastage. I've always used rain-water, and never had any problems, but I've always lived some-where rural. If we have a run of drier summers I could see a situation where my 5 water butts (1000 litres of water storage) isn't a large enough reservoir.

I think for those of us who live in the South and East we are going to have to get used to both water shortages and higher prices for the water that we use. As an example Cambridge has a very low rainfall "At the Botanic Garden, the 30-year average annual rainfall from 1970 to 2000 was just 557 mm" almost exactly the same as Jerusalem, and making it drier than Rome, Perth or Seville.

cheers Darrel

One of the reasons I've always avoided installing an RO system. As a slight aside, one of the benefits for me to the walstad/low tech approach is the low energy usage compared to high tech set ups. I simply don't feel comfortable wasting such amounts of energy on a hobby, nor large amounts of water.
 
hi
has anyone considered setting up a grey water system at home?

i am hopeing to be copying a system one of my brothers has built at his home over the next few months (hopefuly completed before they start installing water meters) i know the grey water wouldnt be any good for a tank unless you went the extra mile on the filtration which with the expertise on here shouldnt be to hard.

a basic description of his set up is that he has plumbed his bath/shower to a sunken water butt the grey water is then passed through progressively finer filter material and finally sponge (pond filter blocks) into a secondary tank which is airated and cycled through a pond uv filter, he experimented with different grades of gravel/sand and the adition of airation,uv and sponge and found that the water didnt seem to putrify if kept for longer periods of time (not indefinate i think) .
he uses this to water his garden via sunken micro irrigation pipes and seems to have great results. and flushing the loo
any excess water (after filtration) is piped to a simple readbed filter at the end of his garden, this he uses in his pond and veg garden.

it is quite a bit of work to set up but depending on where you source youre materials can be fairly inexpensive (gumtree and freecyle are great for this as well as cheap second hand tanks :D )


i know it deviates slightly from the ro issue , but if you can save water in one way then it all helps i guess, who knows with a little tweeking you may arrive at something potable :thumbup:

michael
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,
has anyone considered setting up a grey water system at home?
I'd like too, but we haven't got anywhere to put the water tank, and a retro-fit is quite difficult. In a new build it should be easy. I'd have a look at "Freewater UK ltd" for some ideas.

cheers Darrel

hey Darrel
i know the set up i described sounds huge (i only realised that when i re-read it :) ) if you live in a flat then i think it would be near impossible, my brothers garden is about 30ft he got round it by sinking everything and useing small pond/aquarium pumps to shift the water which is what im thinking of. the only adjustment i plan to make is a larger reed bed . there are alot of sites around that sell what in effect appears to be a cross between an ro filter and a canister aquarium filter.

is sinking the tank a no go?


michael
 
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