Very new here-- basic question about greywater

Hello!  I am very new here and just starting with the basics.

I would like to reroute my greywater from my showers, hand sinks and kitchen sink into a storage tank for irrigation.

I have absolutely no plumbing experience!

I am the kind of person who usually never tries anything new for fear of breaking it beyond repair.  However, I am determined to accomplish this specific goal come hell or high water!  With the advent of AI and the imminent threat to water supplies worldwide, I consider this not only prudent, but a societal duty.
I have been plugging my showers and scooping out the water into jugs, but the process takes about 30 min and is not really practical when I am trying to get out the door and go to work in the morning.

How do I even begin this project?

Any and all advice is appreciated.

Does it freeze where you live? Are your bathroom and kitchen adjacent? what's under the floor where the drain goes currently? Do you own the house? Do you care about the law?

Some folks consider the water from the kitchen sink black water due to the oils and scraps in dish water, especially if there is a garbage disposal.

Sending that to a irrigation tank could add oil/scrap to that storage tank causing future problems.

Can you filter that out? I don't know.

I've always considered it to be black water if it's stored for more than 24 hours.

Mine is a very simple system - just a wide hose-pipe collecting it from the shower, wash basin and washing machine that carries it to whichever fruit tree seems to need it most at the time. No storage involved. But I am very fussy about what soaps are used!

+1 what people are saying about especially the kitchen sink. I'd make that one black water.

That said the actual plumbing and storing is pretty simple. Modern residential plumbing is very easy with plastic (PEX) tubing. Drains are also not that complicated although it's different, PVC pipe with PVC "cement" for glueing it all together. For storage I've used an IBC tote (those big 250 gallon plastic containers with the metal grate around them). They can be had for free or for little money in many locations because farmers just want to get rid of them.

Like people are saying one big concern is freezing: if there's any standing water in it, it needs to be frost proof. For pipes that means burying them, if you have an outdoor storage container you'll need to insulate & possibly heat it. (Or bury it underground I guess?)

I did all of this last summer and while it's like 2-3 skillsets you need to learn, none of them are very difficult. This is all solved stuff and very approachable. It's more about not knowing what you don't know.

We need good understanding of the plumbing details of your house.
- Des the house have stumps
- Is there enough space to reach pipes
- what will you hod the water in
- is the land sloped
- will you use a pump
- where will the water be used
- distance between source and use

I kind of red necked my set up, all of my drains are plumbed directly outside. We have 2 sinks and 1 tub so I just drilled a hole thru the wall and set the pipes out for each one as I got the time. Then there's a adapter for a garden hose and I send it out to where it is needed. My plans are to set up reed beds that drain into a pond next year for any excess water to store it in a way it wont go gross. But this way it broke the project down into chunks that where easy to learn and get done when I had the time.
And yes this seems to work for my winters. Our normal temps in the winter like to get down and stay down in the negatives. I just shorten the hoses and make sure there's never any standing water.

I've discovered on multiple off-grid homesteads that with any serious gardening going on, the need of water for irrigation is at least ten times more than all other household uses combined; unless perhaps you are in a quite rainy climate. (This was assuming no flush toilets in use, only showers, laundry, and kitchen) So as far as total water conservation is concerned, yes, greywater is valuable, but perhaps not as valuable as many think it to be.  It's definitely not worth a lot of elaborate re-plumbing and re-working.  What I've done most places is what Art Ludwig calls a drain to mulch basin....run a wide hose....1 1/4 inch black irrigation plastic works well, direct from each drain outside at a downward slope the whole way to a dedicated pit filled with wood chips or other coarse mulch, and then plant moisture loving plants, usually perennials through shrubs to trees, all around and in it.  In temperate climates things like elderberry, blackberry, comfrey, etc.  In dry climates just about any kind of useful tree or shrub can benefit.  If the single source is very large, say in a large family or community situation, then you might need a branched drain or something like that, some way to spread the water out.  You don't want any standing, because mosquitoes, and you don't want it to clog.....I've often found that setting up some kind of sump pit at the end of the drain hose....a kind of buried bottomless pot or some such so the water comes out into empty space and drops into the mulch, rather than directly into it.  Earthworms and rodents and all will churn up that mulch and mix it with soil eventually....and this is moreso in dry climates since those things are attracted to the moisture.  In California I actually had to dig it out and put it in garden beds every year or two and place fresh mulch for this reason, whereas in wetter climate the basins seem to maintain for years.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Does it freeze where you live? Are your bathroom and kitchen adjacent? what's under the floor where the drain goes currently? Do you own the house? Do you care about the law?

Temperatures where I live never in my lifetime gotten below 20 degrees F.  I sometimes get frost, but have never had frozen pipes. So I guess freezing is possible, but not likely?  Again, I am not at all experienced in these matters, but I believe I have a duty to take the most extreme measures to conserve and preserve water.   (I'll make a thread elsewhere for rainwater collection at a later date.)

the house is on a slope, with a bare earth crawlspace.  (Ill need a respirator for rodent droppings, I know that much, I don't poison for fear of harming raptors and wild canidae.)  

I will almost certainly need a pump.  All my growing space is uphill from the house.

I guess I will have to rule out the kitchen sink -- good to know.

the two bathrooms are on almost opposite sides of the house, and the crawlspace below them is very very cramped, I will need to dig it out, most likely.

I was leaning toward storage, rather than routing the water directly, since I would presumably have to activate the pump, by whatever method, every time I need to move water to the plants that need it.

Once again, I am extremely ignorant of literally everything.  It is best to explain things to me fairly simply.

Theoretically I could just establish a growing space below the house;  however there is very little space on that side, there is no direct sunlight, and an extremely hostile neighbor on the down-hill side.  It is also a seasonal creek.

In gerneral, I think the house was not too well designed, but I am not really qualified make that determination.

Alder Burns wrote:I've discovered on multiple off-grid homesteads that with any serious gardening going on, the need of water for irrigation is at least ten times more than all other household uses combined; unless perhaps you are in a quite rainy climate. (This was assuming no flush toilets in use, only showers, laundry, and kitchen) So as far as total water conservation is concerned, yes, greywater is valuable, but perhaps not as valuable as many think it to be.  It's definitely not worth a lot of elaborate re-plumbing and re-working.  What I've done most places is what Art Ludwig calls a drain to mulch basin....run a wide hose....1 1/4 inch black irrigation plastic works well, direct from each drain outside at a downward slope the whole way to a dedicated pit filled with wood chips or other coarse mulch, and then plant moisture loving plants, usually perennials through shrubs to trees, all around and in it.  In temperate climates things like elderberry, blackberry, comfrey, etc.  In dry climates just about any kind of useful tree or shrub can benefit.  If the single source is very large, say in a large family or community situation, then you might need a branched drain or something like that, some way to spread the water out.  You don't want any standing, because mosquitoes, and you don't want it to clog.....I've often found that setting up some kind of sump pit at the end of the drain hose....a kind of buried bottomless pot or some such so the water comes out into empty space and drops into the mulch, rather than directly into it.  Earthworms and rodents and all will churn up that mulch and mix it with soil eventually....and this is moreso in dry climates since those things are attracted to the moisture.  In California I actually had to dig it out and put it in garden beds every year or two and place fresh mulch for this reason, whereas in wetter climate the basins seem to maintain for years.

This is really good to know!  Thank you!  my only concern is the down-hill side has no sunlight and is in sight of an extremely hostile and unpredictable neighbor.

Hmmm.... I've never gotten Nasturtiums to grow where I live, but this technique might allow them to grow.  Similarly my comfrey is really struggling where it is, perhaps it would grow in a location like that.   What I've read just now suggests that comfrey does tolerate shade.

I'll have to take all the above into consideration

Sam Potter wrote:I kind of red necked my set up, all of my drains are plumbed directly outside. We have 2 sinks and 1 tub so I just drilled a hole thru the wall and set the pipes out for each one as I got the time. Then there's a adapter for a garden hose and I send it out to where it is needed. My plans are to set up reed beds that drain into a pond next year for any excess water to store it in a way it wont go gross. But this way it broke the project down into chunks that where easy to learn and get done when I had the time.
And yes this seems to work for my winters. Our normal temps in the winter like to get down and stay down in the negatives. I just shorten the hoses and make sure there's never any standing water.

Creating a pond is something I hadn't considered!!  it is actually a really good idea in my opinion.  There's a seasonal creek there that could be damned or otherwise stalled.   I like the idea.  How big of a pond would one need to cultivate cattails for making flour?  (hypothertically...)

our winters are not very severe, we have one show per year, generally.  

John C Daley wrote:We need good understanding of the plumbing details of your house.
- Des the house have stumps
- Is there enough space to reach pipes
- what will you hod the water in
- is the land sloped
- will you use a pump
- where will the water be used
- distance between source and use

Based on some of the other replies, I,m leaning toward routing the water to a pond.  I'll need to think this over extensively before breaking gorund.

For argument's sake,
I will need to enlarge the crawlspace before I can access the pipes
I was considering storing the water in a standard storage tank.
yes, very sloped.
unfortunately,  the water would need to moved uphill
I would have to use a pump.
about 200 meters or so.

SJ, you are certainly taking the hard road!
Firstly, take care damming a seasonal creek others may be getting a benefit you are not aware of.

Grey water is best stored for only 24 hors at the most, you can read about the downsides elsewhere.
Ponding may turn into a festering stinking mess, reed beds etc may be the best starting point for a pond.

200 meters total distance, I assume? How much elevation gain is it? That matters for the pumping more than the distance itself (IIRC).

Sounds like you basically want to catch the water leaving your house, e.g. just slightly downhill so it'll gravity feed from your greywater sources into that (could be a tank). Then pump it uphill to either another container there, or a pond. Could do container now and dig out a pond later? I suppose you could also have the pond be downhill of your house if that works. Having a pond not uphill from your house sounds.. smart, now that I think of it, but you'll have to have at least some water up there to use it. You could just pump it up the hill daily as you need it. If you don't care for it to take a while, maybe a really long garden hose is good enough. The really serious option would be to dig a trench and put a PEX (up to 1in I think) below the frost line. I looked it up and it says a 1in PEX can carry about 12 gallons per minute, so it would take only about 20 minutes to pump up an entire 250 gallon IBC tote. I don't know how big your garden up there is, you'd have to figure that out, but that's a lot of water.

20°F is definitely freezing territory if it lasts long enough (couple days?).

For now you could do this with 2 IBC totes (250 gallons each), the pump and the garden hose and just make sure it doesn't freeze, or drain it if it's about to freeze.

John C Daley wrote:SJ, you are certainly taking the hard road!
Firstly, take care damming a seasonal creek others may be getting a benefit you are not aware of.

Grey water is best stored for only 24 hors at the most, you can read about the downsides elsewhere.
Ponding may turn into a festering stinking mess, reed beds etc may be the best starting point for a pond.

I'm aware it's a long shot (I have very little battery left so I'm answering judiciously)
So the creek is only flowing for a few weeks at a time, and it is a tributary of a ditch ajacent to a private road.
I'm likely going to abandon the project, (very grudgingly,) if there are no better Ideas.  I'm the first to acknowlege that I have very little knowledge going into this.

M Pearson wrote:200 meters total distance, I assume? How much elevation gain is it? That matters for the pumping more than the distance itself (IIRC).

Sounds like you basically want to catch the water leaving your house, e.g. just slightly downhill so it'll gravity feed from your greywater sources into that (could be a tank). Then pump it uphill to either another container there, or a pond. Could do container now and dig out a pond later? I suppose you could also have the pond be downhill of your house if that works. Having a pond not uphill from your house sounds.. smart, now that I think of it, but you'll have to have at least some water up there to use it. You could just pump it up the hill daily as you need it. If you don't care for it to take a while, maybe a really long garden hose is good enough. The really serious option would be to dig a trench and put a PEX (up to 1in I think) below the frost line. I looked it up and it says a 1in PEX can carry about 12 gallons per minute, so it would take only about 20 minutes to pump up an entire 250 gallon IBC tote. I don't know how big your garden up there is, you'd have to figure that out, but that's a lot of water.

20°F is definitely freezing territory if it lasts long enough (couple days?).

For now you could do this with 2 IBC totes (250 gallons each), the pump and the garden hose and just make sure it doesn't freeze, or drain it if it's about to freeze.

Thank you for the advice, Since I've never done any plumbing, I'm leaning towards the pond option, but I'm quickly beginning to question myself.  I'm just extremely grateful for all the different advice.  this may end up being a thought experiment more thanb anything else.


(btw, how does one reply to a post without quoting?  I am trying to get my etiquette right here!  thank you!)