A while back, I started using greywater, waste water from my clothes washer, to flush my toilet. The system works well, and saves TONS of water, but I still wanted some way to filter the water first, preferably with a biological system.
I keep a large aquarium, and I also compost, so I thought that some of those same principles could be applied in my laundry room.
So, I converted my laundry tub into a constructed wetland!
To get started, you will need:
Space next to your washer
A laundry tub
Drain Pipe
Hole Saw/Drill
Sand, pebbles, stone, dirt
Landscaping fabric
Wetland Plants
Your wife's permission!
I keep a large aquarium, and I also compost, so I thought that some of those same principles could be applied in my laundry room.
So, I converted my laundry tub into a constructed wetland!
To get started, you will need:
Space next to your washer
A laundry tub
Drain Pipe
Hole Saw/Drill
Sand, pebbles, stone, dirt
Landscaping fabric
Wetland Plants
Your wife's permission!
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Signing UpStep 1: Work Area - Tub Space
To get started, find the space next to your clothes washer.
In this space, I originally had a wash tub, but replaced it with a large barrel to hold laundry water. The original water-lines and drain are still there.
In this case, we are NOT going to use the drain, but rather, install a new pipe that leads to a water storage unit.
Measure where the center of the drain is on the laundry tub, and then mark that same distance on the floor. Drill a hole through the floor there (making sure a floor crossmember isn't directly below) with a 2" hole saw.
Slide a drain pipe through the hole. If you have a full basement, you can slide the pipe in from below later. If you only have a crawlspace, like I do, you will have to put a short piece of pipe through BEFORE you install the laundry tub.
In this space, I originally had a wash tub, but replaced it with a large barrel to hold laundry water. The original water-lines and drain are still there.
In this case, we are NOT going to use the drain, but rather, install a new pipe that leads to a water storage unit.
Measure where the center of the drain is on the laundry tub, and then mark that same distance on the floor. Drill a hole through the floor there (making sure a floor crossmember isn't directly below) with a 2" hole saw.
Slide a drain pipe through the hole. If you have a full basement, you can slide the pipe in from below later. If you only have a crawlspace, like I do, you will have to put a short piece of pipe through BEFORE you install the laundry tub.
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then you could just use the same water over and over and over again for washing clothes, or if you wanted to get really fancy you could use a valve or something and use the water for the toilet occasionally (when you wanted to change out the water)
either way awesome idea
There was one time when I was sort of redoing the plants, and I just had some landscaping fabric in there. It would get wet and not dry. I got fruit flys for a few days because of that.
With the regular setup of plants over sand-filter, everything is fine.
The other odd thing is that the drain plug really isn't all the way to the bottom, I can actually get the tube lower than it would be connected to the drain.
That drain plug might make a good spot for an overflow. Instead of running a pipe straight out from it, I would put an elbow on there and have pipe go up to just short of the top of the greywater tank, then over and out.
I would just need to make sure there is an air break so that it wouldn't siphon ALL the water out if the tank overflowed.
I did end up doing exactly what I said above.
One time, my wife was doing laundry and not paying attention at all, and flooded the crawspace a bit...
I put a PVC pipe going into the drain port on the side of the tank. That splits up to a manual drain with a valve on it, and output to the pump, and a pipe that goes vertically up to just shy of the top of the tank, with a tee that's open to the air to prevent siphoning.
Should the tank get too full ( too many loads of laundry in a row for example... ) it will start going out the overflow drain before it would run over the rim of the container.
I have still not added any sort of "automatic filling valve" to the system. The single biggest idea of this system is to save water, and keep it as simple and passive as possible.
Should the toilet get flushed too many times compared to how much laundry we have done, the water level can drop too low. On the rare occasions that it does, I just run a little water from the laundry tub faucet straight down into the graywater tank...... Then I notice it was about time to do a load of laundry anyways.....
As QuestionConvenience just stated, what this is all really about is setting up the right environment for plants and microrganisms to thrive to help prevent the formation of bad bacteria and keep particulate matter out of my pump.
I'm just trying to imitate the way that nature uses wetlands to clean and filter water.
So far, it's been working very well.
I measured, and when they were shooting up, the grew faster than an inch a day!
The marsh grass isn't doing as well. At first, it shot right up, and looked green and healthy. But then it flopped over and looks to be turning yellow.
Other plants are now growing in there as well. I am happy that these "weeds" seem to be springing right up!
The water in the holding tub stays very clean and clear-looking.
I did later replace the marsh plants with "spider plants" and some other plants that grow well in lower light.
I also installed an LED strip light under the upper cabinet, and had that on a timer. It takes almost no electricity, but still gives the plants some light. It's mostly just for winter use when the days are so short.
Same with chlorine pools.
Half the problem is that people tend to use TOO MUCH of household chemicals.
For me, it's just easier to not use them at all.
When there isn't enough water, and the pump runs, it sounds different. I can just run the faucet, and water runs down into the tub, and pumps from there.
The first load of laundry I did with this machine, I just lined up 5-gallon buckets to see how many would get filled. It was just over four, but not every bucket was filled to the tippy top. Somewhere around 20 gallons then.
You might have a small mistake in step 6. You have a link that says www.ecoprojecteer.net but actually points to this very instructable.
Ecoprojecteer is my ecological home projects blog. I just started it, so there's not much yet, but I am adding to it water conservation, solar hot water, and solar PV project.s