How to Make a Grey Water Cistern
Grey water is the waste water that comes out of your sinks, showers, and laundry machines. It is clean enough to use to flush your toilets or to irrigate your garden. Reuse of your grey water significantly reduces the amount of clean, potable water flushing down your drain. Simple grey water cisterns can be built to capture your sink water directly, or you can build a more complicated, integrated system that connects all your grey water sources and stores the water in a single cistern until it is re-pumped to a toilet, or used for another purpose. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- 5-gallon bucket
- channel-lock wrench
- 3-way valves
- pvc pipe
- 55-gallon container
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Instructions
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5-Gallon Bucket Collection
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1
Disconnect the s-trap on your sink drain pipe with the channel lock or a wrench that is the right size. This will leave the sink drain open, so that you can capture the water that drains out and reuse it. Save the removed section so that you can put it back together if you ever need to.
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2
Set the 5-gallon bucket under the drain pipe, so that water can fill up the bucket as it drains out of the sink. Keep the door over the drain open so that you can see how full the bucket is.
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3
Use the collected water to flush the toilet by pouring it into the toilet bowl after you use it. You'll be able to flush as long as you have at least a gallon and a half in the bucket.
Integrated Grey Water System
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4
Build a grey water collection system that collects all the drain water from your sinks in one place by re-routing your drain pipes into a central cistern. This cistern must be placed below all the sinks so that they can drain by gravity.
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Install a three-way valve below each sink to separate the flow of water into the sewer system from the flow into your grey water tank. You will need less pipe if you install this valve closer to the cistern, but it may be easier to access if the valve is up closer to the sink. One end of the valve outlet will connect to the sink, one will connect to the existing drain line, and one will connect to a new line that you will build to the grey water cistern.
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Install the second pipeline running from the three-way valve to a 55-gallon container below the sink where you will store the grey water. This container can then drain into your yard to irrigate your plants, or can be attached to a pump to bring water up to the toilets for re-use.
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Tips & Warnings
It is important to filter your grey water if you are installing an integrated grey water system with a pump to bring water back up to your toilets. Filter your water before it goes through the pump, or you run the risk of clogging the pump.
If you are building a complicated integrated system with many sinks and several toilets, you may need to consult a plumber who is familiar with installing new drain pipes and can advise you on the pump and feed lines back to your toilets.
References
- Photo Credit robinet image by Danielle Bonardelle from Fotolia.com
