Being waterwise

[jimi]

I know there are a few people on this site in the process of building, or thinking of building a new house in the next year or so. I am one of them.

After reading trouties post on the draining of the Yarragidge (spelling?) aquifer, I talked to our builder about the possibility of being more waterwise by using greywater recycling in our new house.

We have decided to go for a full greywater recycling system that uses treated waste water from the dishwasher, showers, drains (everything other than the dunny) to water the gardens via low evaporation underground trenches. It also directs treated greywater back into the toilet to use for flushing.

The system we are looking at is from these guys - http://www.greywaterreuse.com.au, but there are lots of others around now.

You can get systems from about $300 these days ( a full system like ours is closer to $2000 though) and the state government is offering a $250 rebate. Well worth thinking about for new home builders.

This is something that individuals can do that will make big inroads into reducing perths water demand, and hopefully reduce pressure on the southern aquifers. It will also help reduce nutrient loads dumped into rivers from household waste water.

Cheers
James

yeah my uncle has it in his house...
Good lil investment, for both the house and the environment.

Dave

[Bear]

Even just setting up your own rain water tank can help. The plastic ones are fairly cheap and I've just installed one at my place.

Better tasting as well.

Standing ovation

Nice one Jimi, if only everyone was like you and realised that the bucks stops with us, all of us. One person really does make a difference.

If I ever get around to building a house I’ll be representing full greeny styles, grey water, solar power etc.

Good on ya!

Thats what "think Globally act locally" is all about.

I commend you for James for your forethought, and comittement to our environment.

As regards the rainwater tank - heck do it- you won;t regret it - my advice would be to plumb it into a 3rd tap on your sink (behind your two normal ones for the scheme water).

Your plumber can do this for you with a 3 way tapset.

Whenever you fill your kettle for tea or coffee or just a jug in the fridge for cold drinking water, use the 3rd tap to acess your rainwater.

Once you've had tea or coffee made with rainwater you will likely never be able to enjoy tea or coffee made with scheme 3water ever again - there is just no comparison...it IS that much better...

An average house roffe in perth can collect about 20,000 Gallons (100,000 litres) of rainwater a year - which believe it or not is enough to run an average house of 4 people (without watering gardens) for a year...

There are potentially LARGE savings to be had if you collect and use the rainwater that falls on your own roof.

I wish more people would do so...bioons of gallons of potable(drinkable) water fall on the city of Perth every year and drain from paved roadways carparks roofs etc, straight into the swan without ever being "used" in any way.

Sadly much of it is polluted with detergents from roadways covered in motor oils which contain strong detergents...

All the same if people just used what falls on their roof, with say 500,000 Houses in perth all collecting 100,000 litres of water a year...is 50 Gigalitres a year?...morethan the water authority want to pump from the Blackwood /Yarragadee aquifer to alleviate the current Perth water shortage crisis.

Hopefully more people will follow your footsteps James.

You show great promise by leading by example.

Cheers!

[jimi]

Thanks Ira and Trouty :D

When building a new house you are basically starting afresh so you get to try out a lot of these new ideas. I guess it's harder for older places, but still possible.

Another thing we have been looking at is garden design, with the aim being to reduce our lawn area to almost nothing and plant all native plants. That way we can almost totally avoid the use of fertilisers and lower our water needs even further. I'm amazed at the range of native plants you can get now.

Also worth looking at is orienting and designing the house to minimise heating/cooling needs by taking advantage of our sea breezes (that we hate so much when we're fishing :D),
and by using well positioned shady deciduous trees - so you get shade in summer, sun in winter.

Cheers
James

Can have a huge effect, There a house down here positioned to take account of th summer winter solstice so that sun falls on windows to warm the house in winter and doesnt fall on any windows in Summer.

It has good insulation and utilises large dia PVC "tubes" under/in the concrete floor to deliver warm air from roof spaces into living area's in winter for heating and reverses and takes warm air out in Summer etc...

Theres lots you can do, double glazing along with good insulation will retain huge amounts of normal heating /cooling energy loss, which over time pays off in heating / colling biulls savings bit is expensive up front as a once off capital cost.

Using sizalation under the roof cladding as well as Batts on the ceiling isn't overkill either..

Vents to take hot air out of the roof also help..

How much do you want to spend it what it all comes back to.

Solar passive houses are a great idea and do eventually pat for themselves.

Cheers!

[MATTY]

well done jimi especially where you are planning to build.saw an article on t.v about 18 months or so ago about a woman in perth who wanted to save her grey water.nothing on the market as far as she was aware so she designed her own.must have caused a bit of interest for them to become commercially available.
a lot of new housing estates are becoming more aware of environmental issues.
morgan fields where i've built is big on passive solar,water wise gardens and practices.all the drains run into a couple of lakes where the water is filtered naturally then onto another reservoir then pumped back into the estate to water parks etc.a lot of people have rainwater tanks which is a great idea,lots of low profile,modern designs.
not much i know but its a start.there is a lot of interest in planting along the swan as well to help with nutrient filtering with a few volunteer groups up that way as well.
must say that on page 4 of the west i noticed a big estate planned for area between ellenbrook and the vines,4500 lot subdivision.thats a hell of a lot of people around the ellen and henley brooks.could be a worry if the design and groundwater guidelines are a bit lax.
always the optimist though
cheers

[Bear]

Same goes for sewage.

A lot of places still have leach drains. These can be converted using the new system that breaks down the waste thus reducing the amount of sewage that drains into the surrounding area and thus into our water ways.

Wish they could get the new system running properly. Way too many spills into the Swan and Canning.

Other things to think of are to do with power as well. I've converted our garden lighting to solar chargable systems. Same with the ponds I have. (ponds encourage the frogs)

Take it a step further and look at sky lights to reduce the need for lighting during the day.

It all makes a difference.

[MATTY]

dont put solar powered lights in your front yard,they go walkies.

:mad:

early chrissy present TO the in-laws

[Bear]

Got to admit Matty, I only have them out the back.

[scott]

you can also get solar systems that run all the electrical appliances in your house. When you have surpluss power, you can basically sell it back to western power for others to use, effectively having a negative power bill!!!

another option to consider