my greywater stinks!

[Richard on Maui]

Presently, the greywater from my house goes into a large diameter pipe which spills into a big hole with bananas planted around it. It sort of sits in there and festers, and then when it is full enough it overflows into another smaller banana circle , which then overflows again into another and another. The first pit actually has loads of water hyacinth in it, but it and the bananas just can't suck up all the nutrient I guess, and some days, depending on rainfall to dilute it and wash it out, and other factors too I suppose, it gets pretty smelly. It is just far enough from the house that it isn't too much of an issue most of the time, unless the wind blows from that direction, or worst still, if the breeze stops altogether and then it just hangs around...

I am not sure what to do about it basically.

I did try a while ago to find plumbing fittings to reduce the pipe down to 2" or something which I was going to run further away from the house to trees and compost piles, but, the pipe is like 5 1/2 " diameter, or something unusual and I just haven't found the fittings to make this happen.

Then, the other day, I was getting leftover paint from a recycling place in the central valley, and they had all these bath tubs sitting there, so I asked and they said I could have them.

Now, what I am thinking is that if I connect plumbing to the bathtub drain I will be able to direct the water in more useful directions... but then I also got to wondering if I put some kind of filtration medium in the tub, then I could use the water on vegetable crops like water chestnut or something similar.

But, if I fill a bathtub with a filtration medium like sand, gravel or charcoal or a combination of the three, will I end up with a new kind of stinky mess?

Okay, as I write, I am thinking that I will take a 5 gallon bucket and drill holes in it, and fill the bucket with the filtration medium, and put the bucket inside the bathtub. When the water has passed through the filter it will go through the holes in the bucket and into the bathtub and then out the drain and into a water chestnut pond or a pipe off to a bamboo plant or wherever. That way, I could dump out the stinky filter material every so often.

Does that sound like it would work? Does anyone have any simpler, guaranteed not stinky ways of doing this?

[gardenlen]

g'day richard,

if you filter it then you have the extra task of cleaning that filter medium out of the container and dealing with that. as always it is best to get your grey water to ground as fresh as it comes, unless yo are going to install a reed bed into the system. sounds like you generate a lot of grey water though?

if you are in heavy clay (once saturated it holds water more than it allosw water to penetrate it) could you set up a pipe system using 1" or 2" even down to 3/4", with holes drilled where it passes each plant along your rows and it will then act like a drip system that continues as long as the water is in the pipe, you can set up a simple screen type filter at the beginning to trap hair and lint.

the way i see it grey water should never sit for any length of time it is best used as fresh as it comes. another consideration might be the amount of rainfall you get, if you get lots then the ground is always saturated so any you add will simply run off the top. and even i clay i my experience is that rip lines along the contours are going to do the job of getting that water underground far better than trenches/pits will.

len

[christopher]

Richard,

We have our sink going to an open topped 5 gallon bucket filled with charcoal and bamboo pieces. From the bottom of this container, it flows via another 2 inch wide piece of PVC into the top of another container, a 40 gallon blue tank (like Joel uses on some of his aquaponics :wav: projects), also open topped. This second container is filled with gravel, and while the water coming out at the bottom of that tank is not "clean", it cleans up the water a lot.

The effluent from the second tank is released into a swale, with pineapple planted on the down hill side of the swale.... in a long row. I shuld take some pictures as it is working pretty well.

Try filtering your water through two buckets, one with pieces of charcoal and bamboo (shredded), and the other filled with gravel. It works for us.

C

[Richard on Maui]

Thanks guys.

Yep, heavy, though fairly porous clay. And massive rainfall.

Christopher, your system sound like what I am thinking of. But, wouldn't you want your charcoal filter to go last, as it has the finest filtration? I guess whatever works, eh? I'd love to see some pictures.

[christopher]

Richard,

The charcoal is at the bottom of the first bucket. We didn't design it. Penny Livingston and Toby Hemenway did for the PDC, and the students built it, so I am not sure of the "why" they designed it that way, but I can say that there is no septic smell from the effluent at the end of the pipe!

Will get some pictures up the next day we have lots of light. Been really wet and rainy here!

C

[Cornonthecob]

I don't know why, but while I was watering I started to think about this (sad huh!)

Would it be possible, for your coarse filter, to use something like humus, mulch or even a cheap potting mix?

If so then these could be used somewhere on the garden perhaps?

[ho-hum]

Richard,

I think you have the right design, just not enough of it. I would imagine you just need another 2 or 3 primary circles to give the ground [and plants and worms] time to dry out.

If you push 8 or 10 feet of 2 inch poly up the bigger pipe it will form its own partial seal and let you divert the greywater somewhere else.

Greywater carries a fair bit of fat and grease and this takes time for the worms to eat [and they do] or break down. This stuff forms a ''gley'' seal on the soil. Once its dry just shovel it up and compost.

I have a system currently running that is a bit like this and has been running about 5 years, even with tenants. It is a 3/4inch poly system that goes under mulch. As soon as it starts to smell it is moved. Also often a sink full of hot water is sent down just to clean the pipes. The automatic washing machine goes straight onto the lawn and is moved all the time.

The bathroom including laundry tub run out onto gardens but I put this back through the septic in the wet season as there is not enough garden there.

Every time I sit down to 'design' a greywater system I finish up with something that looks like a modified septic system... :shock:

mike

[Richard on Maui]

Hey thanks for the thoughts Floot. Unfortunately there isn't much room for more than one pit at the intial outflow spot. It would involve taking up the only piece of lawn per se on the place. I would do it, but the owners I daresay wouldn't approve...
But your idea of shoving a length of 2" polypipe in there far enough might work to redirect some of the flow. I have some young bamboo down hill from the pits that I would love to be feeding with the greywater.
I went to the hardware the other day and was shocked to find that the cheapest bath drain fitting was like $15, and you can buy $100 numbers with fancy levers and so on...
I am thinking now about cutting a 50 gallon poly drum in half and filling that with filter medium. Using the existing threaded hole to attach a pipe...