Simple Greywater Diverter for your garden

stevo

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A simple way to conserve water when you have a garden is to use your greywater from the shower. This probably suits suburban people more, or even if you're on property this is a way to make your water go further.
This Greywater diverter switch was $5 and is easily installed. The hose to suit is about $20? for 10metres.

I just manually move the hose around each day. I have a plan to make a more complex greywater system
with some tanks and filtration, but that will take some time.

shackers.net_images_photos_greywaterdiverter.jpg

shackers.net_images_photos_greywaterdiverterhose.jpg
 

stevo

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ahh maybe I should've mentioned that. These pipes are PVC so you just use a woodworking hand saw.

I made the top cut and then swung the top pipe out of the way, then made the bottom so it was still fixed and stable. Then slide the diverter on the bottom pipe, swing the top pipe around and slide the diverter up to connect them. It's not glued yet but doesn't leak because the water is diverted and there's no water pressure. I will eventually glue it so it's finished and solid.

I think technically you have to get a plumber to do it.

I know it's a pretty basic and well known idea, but I thought it might help someone out there.

Mark, do you have some kind of greywater system on your property?
 

Mark

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I know it's a pretty basic and well known idea, but I thought it might help someone out there.

Mark, do you have some kind of greywater system on your property?

Ok that seems easy enough :thumbsup:

I do have a greywater system because my whole septic is one. I have a mini-treatment plant where all our household waste water and sewage goes into two underground tanks. It's then aerated, solids separated from the water, filtered, before being treated with chlorine and then pumped out onto the garden.

We don't use the recycled water on our vegetables but I've been told it's perfectly safe to do so by our service guys. Still, I prefer to sprinkle it on the lawn, ornamental garden, and sometimes the orchard in really dry times.

It pumps out several times a day especially when we're doing the clothes washing. The only downside is it uses power and is always running doing its job but I feel that's an ok trade-off.
 

stevo

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Excellent, I have plans for a greywater tank type system with pumps, even a couple of those 1000L tanks hidden away somewhere. Seem like a good idea to reuse water instead of sending it down the street in a pipe.
 

Mark

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Excellent, I have plans for a greywater tank type system with pumps, even a couple of those 1000L tanks hidden away somewhere. Seem like a good idea to reuse water instead of sending it down the street in a pipe.
Yeah that's right - more people should do what you have done and divert that grey water to somewhere useful I think it's an excellent idea and doesn't seem that hard by the way you explained it.
 

Justin Dallas

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I love that - Keep it Simple! My greywater system is even simpler - a 50mm to 30mm convertor, fed into a 30mm clear hose.
The main issue I found with using greywater is getting flow right - using a hosepipe from the bath outlet took maybe an hour to drain - with a thicker hose (im using a 30mm now instead of an 12mm garden hose) - it takes 10 mins to drain.

I tried out some very complex stuff - like reworking the spa baths jet pump to pump out the water; as well as using one of those V-pumps (venturi effect) - was also looking at the Aus product called G-flow.
 

stevo

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cheers Justin,

I still have my hose connected, I also found because of the length of the hose it can slow the flow down so I've slightly adjusted the diverter switch to let a fraction of water through in to the mains outlet just to take the pressure off the grey water hose, I don't have much fall from the shower drain to the end of the outlet pipe so there's not much hydraulic pressure. I just use the grey water on the lawn now as the garden is too high so the water wont make it up to it.

I've gone off the idea of making a grey water storage tank as from what I've read people advise against storing grey water because of pathogens/bacteria.
 

Justin Dallas

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good idea stevo - just a simple drip through irrigation is perfect. I know there are ways to process grey water but, that sounds like a pain to be honest. I did watch something quite interesting that used reeds & bullrushes (root system) to filter & clean water - kind of like a mini eco eystem.
 
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