Grey Water? Gray Water? Take your pick.

What is this stuff? In CA, grey water is waste water from any fixture in your home EXCEPT your toilets and kitchen sink. To this I would add your garage utility sink if you have one. All this can be collected to use in your garden to water your plants. Is it worth the cost of a system? Let’s take a look.

1. The simplest form is called a “ laundry-to-landscape” system (or L2L). This takes the water directly from your washing machine and, by gravity, waters your trees or shrubs. The simplest systems cost around $2,000 and can be installed in a day. You have to be really careful about what type of detergent you use and if you use bleach, then you would switch the water back to the sewer (easily done). The number of plants you can water depends on how many people use the washing machine on a regular basis. Many homes can benefit from such a system. Check out the pics of a system I recently installed:

2. Moving on up, the next step is a system that collects grey water from several sources, stores it in a tank, and then releases it to plants. This works best when your home is built on a slope with room under the home for the tank (not all that big) and everything you want to water is below the level of the home. This is a bit more complicated and expensive, but it can still be cost-effective depending on your situation.

3. Other systems can collect all of the waste water in a home and distribute it via drip tubing to your landscape. These are quite expensive and the water you save will never be enough to recoup the cost of such a system. Practicing good water management in your home and yard will benefit the environment far more than these systems.

Interested in finding out more? Give me a call and let’s see what is possible.