Easy Peasy Grey Water Recycling

Greywater recycling always seems like such a no-brainer. Using your expended washing machine, dishwasher, sink water for washing your car, watering the plants etc... seems so obvious and easy in theory. Of course, retrofitting your existing house to make this easy and more automated (because let's face it, unless its easy, we aren't going to do it) is actually kinda complicated and can get messy. Not to mention that its against many uptight town ordinances - apparently they would rather pay money to filter drinking quality water for you to shine up that '05 Ford Fiesta rather than you use the slightly tinged laundry water.


But here is a great concept that looks pretty easy to install, makes total sense and probably wouldn't come across the radar of your local housing inspector....not that we want to cheat the system, just cruise the edges;-)

The Sloan Aqus Greywater System filters your sink water and uses that to flush the toilet. How brilliant and easy. They claim that it can save a household upto 5,000 gallons/year. I presume that is based on not having low flush toilets and probably a family of 4 that drink A LOT! They do provide a water savings calculator on their site but you have to know what you pay for water per gallon, if you pay at all. Just the water savings, let alone any cost savings, to me, make it worth it. They also have lots of other water saving products for the shower and sink, must research those more! One of these includes a urinal system, something that Kyle would love to install in the new house. NO WAY - we are not building the Staples Center here...

Anyway, the Sloan Aqus is rumored to be in the $400 range, I am sure it wouldn't be hard to build something like this yourself if you have a Home Depot near and a nose for plumbing goop glue - its purple, its pretty.

I would love to install this idea in the new house. Aesthetically I didn't really want cabinets under the sinks but maybe there is a happy medium...stay tuned.

Source -  Inhabitat