All About Greywater and How It Decreases Water Bills

Home | All About Greywater and How It Decreases Water Bills

All About Greywater and How It Decreases Water Bills

Are you concerned about your increasingly high water bills? You can significantly reduce your water consumption costs while also doing your part for the environment with the use of a greywater recycling system.

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We rely on the water that comes out of our taps every day to be clean, healthy and safe to drink. But have you ever considered how much of the water you use on a regular basis that doesn’t necessarily need to be potable, like the water you use to water your lawn or to flush toilets?

At the same time, much of the water we send into the local sewage system as wastewater is clean enough for such uses. This creates an ideal opportunity for recycling.

What Is Greywater?

In a residential environment, greywater is water that has been lightly used, such as that coming from sinks, bathtubs, showers or washing machines. Blackwater, on the other hand, is water that has been more severely contaminated, like water from the toilet.

How a Greywater Recycling System Can Work In Your Home

Greywater systems collect water from sinks, showers, and bathtubs for non-potable uses, such as subsurface irrigation or supplying water for toilets. The addition of such a system to your home requires separate waste lines for greywater and blackwater. Often, water from the kitchen sink is not collected for a greywater system, as it is more likely to contain grease, food, and bacteria.

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If greywater is to be used to feed toilets, separate supply pipes must also be installed to ensure that there is no cross-contamination with the drinking water in the home.

Safety Precautions to Take When Using Greywater

Previously, plumbing codes made no distinction between greywater and blackwater; it was all considered sewage. It is only with the rise of the environmental movement to conserve water that some jurisdictions have begun allowing greywater to be reused under specific circumstances.

Since greywater is more likely to have a high bacterial content, it can only be stored for a very

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limited time, or it may develop a pungent odor and become more hazardous. Therefore, greywater systems are designed to automatically send such overflow into municipal sewer lines. Direct contact with greywater should also be avoided.

Subsurface irrigation should be limited to decorative landscaping or fruit trees because greywater should not come into direct contact with the edible part of produce.

Water from the irrigation system must not be allowed to collect, pool on the ground’s surface or runoff, as this can present a hazard to groundwater tables and can increase the risk of someone coming into contact with it.

When using a greywater recycling system, detergents, and cleaning products with harsh ingredients such as chlorine bleach, salts or boron should be avoided as these can damage the soil and vegetation.

You can be greener with a greywater recycling system in your home that significantly reduces how much water you consume.

To find out more about how a greywater system could work for you and other water conservation tips, call (530) 290-1922 to speak to the experts at Hall’s Plumbing Inc. in Woodland, CA.

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