The Green Dream: Going Gray, Saving Blue

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Hi John,

I've been reading your blog with great interest; this is off topic so if you'd like to reply to me via email that'd be fine. I know you took the photos for a 1994 article on "The Mud House", a catenary Vermont home built by Robert Chappelle made of stabilized earth and rigid foam. I've been searching all over for more information on how he did this and can find zilch. Do you have any ideas where I can find more info on this kind of earth home? Thanks in advance.

Could graywater be used to irrigate fruit trees grown in villager's backyards? People from third-world countries will not be able to afford retrofitting their homes with western-developed technology. Graywater recycling will be very important in semi-arid regions of the world where water and food are in limited supply.

I do green rehabs to historic homes (www.ecohistorical.com) and have been evaluating graywater and rainwater solutions for my LEED Platinum projects in San Francisco over the last few months. I enjoyed reading about your project in detail, but I have not, however, been able to locate any business called "Blue Eco Systems". How can I track them down? Keep up the good work. We need more people pushing the eco-building limits!

I can certainly respect the idea of being more green but unfortunately, it's usually not financially worth it and sometimes is even less green in the end.

There are so many more variables than people think. In this case, if water is scarce, its a great idea! But when conserving one thing, we do the opposite for another.

So $2600 so save a few bucks a month on water? Even then do you really save anything? Looks like you will have to maintain chlorine tablets, pumps, and plumbing thats not included in the cost. Makes no sense to do this unless you live in a desert.

Another point is instead if just using a few gallons of fresh water, you now polluted the earth with hundreds of feet of PVC pipe, toxic glues to hold it together, pumps manufactured in China where they used oil and coal powered plants in addition to spewing all kinds of chemicals in the pump making process, and lastly used polluting energy to make and deliver your holding tanks.

I don't know about you, but it seems to be a waste.

To be truly green we have to cease to exist!

It makes me laugh that everyone is all obsessed about going green "for our children" and how we have to use less so when the population doubles in the near future they can survive ... well, STOP HAVING SO MANY KIDS! Now THAT is GREEN! I am responsible and only have 2 kids. So you are saying that *I* have to suffer because every person on welfare or in other countries like Africa are SPEWING OUT A DOZEN KIDS?? Tough crap ... that's not MY problem. Make a "GREEN" law stating you can only have 2 kids per family and that will solve it right there ...

sneakyboots- Hi Yes I photographed Robert's Mud House and remember it well-
Here is a link to the GOOGLE SCAN of the original story

http://books.google.com/books?id=E9hvd4utfQEC&pg=PA35&dq=Robert+Chappelle+mud+house&hl=en&ei=c74jTN7ILIGC8gb7upGPBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Robert%20Chappelle%20mud%20house&f=false

Staff Photographer
Popular Science Magazine

Gray water is just as nasty and unhealthy as black water. I live on rain water and know all too well how much water is used each day or month.

What do you think happens when people wash there bottoms or number one in the shower? What happens when dogs dishes or humans dishes are washed to make this water? Your koodies end up in the water to breed and take over just like any other kind of yuck.

Take it from me. You must have only 100% sanitary water in your home and anywhere bugs, children, pets or edible plants can come into contact with it.

Only some idiot would suggest trying to use gray water.

Lol at Jefro, I was just curious if the water gets screened for hair or is that toilet going to be clogged with a hairball relatively quickly?

Greywater is very popular in countries like Australia, and more and more people are interested in recycling their water for their outdoor irrigation. As long as they can use an automatic system that doesn't require a lot of maintenance!

After travelling to Australia last year, I decided to install the Aqua2use greywater system from Water Wise Group at my home in California to irrigate my plants and trees. There is also a filtering process inside the system, but it doesn't use any chlorine. Actually, it doesn't use any chemical. The system is connected to my washing machine and shower, and each time we take a shower, we water our garden. It's a great feeling !

I am not very handy, so we asked a plumber to install the system. It was pretty easy, and only took a couple of hours.

The total cost for the system and the installation by the plumber was less than $1000. And since then, it is working perfectly.

Green technology investment has always lost out to cost recovery... if the early 70's oil crisis isn't the best example this country should have learned from these events, I can't do any better here and now... however...

I learned that a huge new goverment sector, public concern and money spent over the last 40 years, hasn't produced any tangible results except for the EPA, and their track record is spotty and has cost a fortune. As long as the market dictates the value of technology, speed and cost of production always wins.

As most humans, myself included, that have occupied this earth and have never experienced need, and I mean like "need to survive"... our daily existance is occupied by the need to get to tomorrow... eat, sleep, love, work and play. Everyone of us in our hearts wants to be "Green" and practicality always wins out... at least in my hectic life.

What I have learned is that I can make small changes in my daily life that do not cost very much in either time or money... even if it means getting some cheap plastic rain barrels and stop using city/well water for your yard... recycle as much as you can... turn lights off and rein in your appliances power consumption.

If these small steps had been done for the last 40 or so years, we might have saved a little money and gained a little more respect for our world and fellow man and life could be... maybe not, but could be better today and maybe despite the interest in the almighty dollar, we could have been spared the disasters of our past and what we're facing in the Gulf today...

That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

Ciao fer Now

Great job on using gray water - I've seen this in use on the Islands. Did you ever consider installing those no flow urinals that they make now? I wonder how much water in a house is used to flush urine. One can only let it mellow so long.

@cruzinmy64 - great point about the kids. Problem is the folks having the "most kids" aren't the ones preaching about being green.

The graywater system in this project lacks the single most important element of any thing green. It lacks sustainability. The silly guy a few comments up was right when he spoke of how much water and energy goes into creating a system like this. Its also very high maintenance. Truly going green mean getting off the expensive thrill of high tech super involved systems to solve our problems and embracing simple SUSTAINABLE solutions that solve the problems without creating more larger problems. Sure this is a demonstration home but its demonstrating the wrong thing. The simple graywater systems described at oasisdesign.net and www.montereygreywater.com work better, use 50 times less resources to create, are massively cheaper to install, are very low maintenance, and last practically forever.

This project is awesome, I been following it since day 1.

I was thinking of doing some renovations and upgrades also...It doesn't get terribly hot here so electric fans work.

Either way I was still thinking of getting new insulation and having done by greenhouse locally:

www.greenhousehomeimprovements.com

I have been using rainwater for decades.

It goes into an above ground 500 gallon tank (and I just added another 300 gallon tank).

Then the water that goes into the house is filtered with a particulate filter, a carbon filter and then UV treatment. It is tested once a year and is totally clean of any contaminants.

After that it goes to the toilets, shower and bath.

During the summer the shower and bath (toilet water goes into the sewer of course) are drained into the yard to water the plants which then drain into the root wads of the trees.

In the winter the water is stored in a heat exchanger that warms the water coming into the house so I save energy costs there.

The really cool part is that it is all gravity fed and doesn't require any energy on my part.

My only cost is the filters.

There are a lot of green options available now, comparing product efficiency, and looking for renewable alternatives to common products is helpful. A perfect example is candles. Paraffin candles are made from fossil fuels, and soy candles are made from renewable soy bean oil. They burn cleaner and longer. www.urbanchicsoap.com sells these. Homes could be much better insulated using double wall construction where wall framework is staggered so two thinner layers of insulation overlap. This works well in hot and cold climates.

When do we get an update on the progress of this project?

Great job on using gray water - I've seen this in use on the Islands. Did you ever consider installing those no flow urinals that they make now? I wonder how much water in a house is used to flush urine. One can only let it mellow so long.
www.promdresspicture.com

I'm following oldshorty's lead, when do we get an update on the progress of this project?

Only 110 gallons saved! Ah! I think we need to start designing homes that are 100% green. None of this "well i SAVE..." bla bla bal! I mean your home can reuse all of a person's waste. This is not impossible especially when there is energy as abundant as the SUN! I believe that if we consume less (because the average american consumes 43 times as much as the average african) we will make the idea of 100% green a popular possibility. Oh I hate how much we consume as americans. We consume so much! and what is worse china wants to copy our life style and consume like we do! A new paradigm is what we need! yup less greed more realization and then BOOM we will be like "oh yeah we used to be stupid but now we are one with the earth and can still make technology available using outside/almost infinite/ energy." (the SUN)

P.S. there is an article about how we could power the earth a BILLION times over with just ONE satellite equipped with a large solare array. forgot the name though...

P.P.S. GO UNIVERSE!

First, I have a gauge on my water system and we use 90 to 100 gallons a day average, not 350 gallons. Second, if these systems are not designed and installed when the house is in construction, the pay back is over 25 years. Water is not that expensive to merit these measures. And lastly, I do endorse these types of devices where water is limited and costly or the use can merit the upgrades (apartment, multi-housing unit, etc.) By the way, toilet flushing is not 3 to 7 gallons anymore. Its 1.5 gallons and even less on dual flush toilets.

Congratulations on your project! anything that will conserve resources and our planet for future generations is a blessing to us all. I too have an idea to help our planet but on a much larger scale, the only thing is I don,t know how to reach the right people to talk to about it. I have contacted the Secretary of the Department of Energy, Siemens research dept and a few others but none of them take me seriously. In a nutshell my idea is a system with an unlimited source of natural power that could concievbly eliminate coal,natural gas and even nuclear power plants for future generations to come. It sounds incredible I know but we have the technology and the resources available right now. this project could put thousands of people to work in many numerous fields and could possibly turn the economy back in the right direction. Any feedback would be much appreciated. May God bless you S.O.P.F.O.K.

This looks like a innovative and fun project, although I do have a couple of comments on your going gray, saving blue article that I just read today on recycled copy of PopSci. I am not sure a 3,500 square foot house with 4 toilets for family of four should be considered eco-friendly even if of energy efficient design. Toilets were mandated in 1995 to be 1.6 gallons per flush instead of 3 to 7 gallons. And most important, as shown in the diagram, the gray water is potentially pumped under pressure directly into the town's water supply. This is a classic and dangerous cross connection that should be corrected.

To improve your system and eliminate the clorine hassel change to an ultraviolet steriliser. An ultraviolet light in your tanks will kill any bacteria and you won't have to keep up with clorine.