Greetings my gray-wet permies,
This is a question about gray
water, but here's some context first. My family and I are in the process of working with our
local county building inspector to permit a timber-frame and
straw bale home in central Kentucky, USA. He's agreed to use NM building code and learn as he goes, so we're excited, but we've hit one more hurdle to jump over: gray-water. Before we can even move forward with the building inspector, the environmental services branch of the county health department has to sign off on our system. We are planning on using a Sun-Mar Composting toilet (we already have a
humanure bucket system loo I built that we use when we camp on our property) to eliminate black-water from being an issue.
My question is this: Has anyone successfully permitted a gray water system in Kentucky or one of the surrounding states (or anywhere?) that didn't use an in-ground septic tank. Our goal would be that we'd have our sinks, tub, and washing machine (we don't plan on having a dishwasher) plumbed to a surge barrel (60+ gallons) in the Laundry to Landscape scheme. This would then (added step) empty into a gravel/plant filter bed which would then empty into a branched system watering
perennial fruit
trees and berry bushes.
Our local environmental services guy at the health department has been super friendly and helpful with answering questions, but he has referred us to the state level with the suggestion to write a proposal for experimental status - state code mandates a septic, so we need a waiver if we're going to avoid it. If we are granted an experimental waiver, then he'll sign off. We'll have to make our case that we can address the requirements for water safety and then hope that the folks at the state level will be as willing to learn and go along with us as the folks at the county level have been.
We're very rural (but not remote) and decided to go ahead and go the permitted route because we A) don't want to invest a ton of effort only to have someone come along and shut us down, push to condemn the system/house, or worst case scenario involve CPS because someone decided water flush toilets and a septic tank for biodegradable soapy water are necessary to good parenting. B) we're piggy-backing on other people advancing the paradigm shift, so we want to at least try to put in a permit-legal system for the sake of those who might follow if the path were a bit more trod.
The composting toilet is not a problem; it doesn't require a permit for us. Even if we had flush toilets and were on a septic for black water, the ground in our part of the state doesn't perc correctly, so we'd wind up with a lagoon evaporating area anyway - so basically a big
pond we can't go near. If we have to have a septic tank and lagoon for gray water...we still wind up with a
pond we can't go near because now we've got stale gray water breeding funk. We figure the system we are proposing takes care of the evaporation, filtration, and eliminates open water hazards.
So, any suggestions? Anyone ever written a proposal or asked for a waiver in the past? Thanks for any feedback
Cheers,
Adam
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