Saving water!

[TyTanium]

No, I think he's suggesting using already-used water, aka grey water, to flush toilets. Comes into the house once, used twice.

Google search: Grey water systems; it's a real thing

 

[Hamsterbite]

No, I think he's suggesting using already-used water, aka grey water, to flush toilets. Comes into the house once, used twice.

Google search: Grey water systems; it's a real thing

And this pretty well demonstrates the issue that most Americans have no clue or just don't care how wasteful our way of life is comparing to the rest of the planet.
Some in the arrid regions are beginning to get it...especially those where reservoir source waters are drying up, and where the Ogalla Aquifer has receded.

Our sanitary standards are high, yes, and that has played a huge role in the control of disease, but at some point in the near future, flushing toilets with potable water will be very obviously unsustainable.

I would like to have a greywater system...unfortunately, our infrastructure, residential construction codes, and status quo make that pretty much impossible to do (financially, and in some cases logistically) in existing homes. Even if building a new structure, many localities basically wont allow it because it hasn't yet been adressed as an option in their codes. They have no problem writing citations for water ban violations though...

 

[Slipgate]

Not sure how you would have a grey water system. You could certainly have a cistern to hold the used water. But how do you get it to the toilette? Water from the city gets to your house via gravity. You would need to put in a pumping system in the house to pump the water from the grey-water cistern to your toilettes. I just don't see this ever being cost effective. The power to run the pump would be more than the water costs. Now where this is necessary due to no public sewers and/or extreme shortages of water, this could be done for reasons other than cost savings and I get that. The OP lives near a huge lake and there are no water shortages. Most people are connected to public sewers. All water that runs through them goes back to the water treatment facility to be reused. Again, you really cannot waste water. It all gets back eventually.

 

[Hamsterbite]

Not sure how you would have a grey water system. You could certainly have a cistern to hold the used water. But how do you get it to the toilette? Water from the city gets to your house via gravity. You would need to put in a pumping system in the house to pump the water from the grey-water cistern to your toilettes. I just don't see this ever being cost effective. The power to run the pump would be more than the water costs. Now where this is necessary due to no public sewers and/or extreme shortages of water, this could be done for reasons other than cost savings and I get that. The OP lives near a huge lake and there are no water shortages. Most people are connected to public sewers. All water that runs through them goes back to the water treatment facility to be reused. Again, you really cannot waste water. It all gets back eventually.

Sorry to the OP...veering off topic in the spirit of his post so I digress. I'll just say that I respectfully disagree with slipgate and suggest if we want to continue this discourse to start a new thread.

 

[H-ost]

@ slipgate

Water does not get to your house solely by gravity. Treatment plants use pumps to maintain the desired pressure to adhere to water demands which vary greatly during peak times and low times. There are also places called pump stations or pump houses along that help maintain proper pressures.

Secondly, the world of water is broken into Drinking Water and Waste Water. "Reclaimed water" i.e. water that has been used for sewage does not get changed back into drinking water, it is treated and reused as non-potable water. Non potable water is used for many things like irrigation, fire hydrants, car washes.... but not drinking water (at least not until the natural water cycle has its way with it).

 

[lewishowardm3]

I run my chiller water into a 5 gallon bucket and use that to clean my equipment.

 

[Slipgate]

@ slipgate

Water does not get to your house solely by gravity. Treatment plants use pumps to maintain the desired pressure to adhere to water demands which vary greatly during peak times and low times. There are also places called pump stations or pump houses along that help maintain proper pressures.

Secondly, the world of water is broken into Drinking Water and Waste Water. "Reclaimed water" i.e. water that has been used for sewage does not get changed back into drinking water, it is treated and reused as non-potable water. Non potable water is used for many things like irrigation, fire hydrants, car washes.... but not drinking water (at least not until the natural water cycle has its way with it).

You are incorrect on the pressure. All of your pressure comes from the water tower and gravity. Pumps may pump water around and up into the tower, but your houses gets pressure hydrostatically from the tower. I won't discount that some locations may have a pump somewhere in the system but I do not think any of those are related to the pressure you see at your home faucet.

And while there is no direct reuse of water from the sewers (yet), it is typically treated and either dumped in a larger body of water or used for what you described. But eventually, through natural and mad-made processes, ends up back in the municipal water system.

 

[H-ost]

You are incorrect on the pressure. All of your pressure comes from the water tower and gravity. Pumps may pump water around and up into the tower, but your houses gets pressure hydrostatically from the tower. I won't discount that some locations may have a pump somewhere in the system but I do not think any of those are related to the pressure you see at your home faucet.

And while there is no direct reuse of water from the sewers (yet), it is typically treated and either dumped in a larger body of water or used for what you described. But eventually, through natural and mad-made processes, ends up back in the municipal water system.

You are not entirely wrong but your statement is a little to general. Not all municipalities use above ground storage and not all above ground storage means a water tower.

 

[fpweeks]

I wont engage in the debate about how municipal water systems operate.......even tho I'd like to.

Switch to a plate chiller. Cuts chill time down to a few minutes. Go to the duda diesel website, I believe they have a chart that tells you how much water is used to chill a batch.

 

[ajlee]

hook a sprinkler up to the end of your chiller out hose and water the lawn

I like this one.

 

[stonebrewer]

I recently built a brew stand and what I do to conserve on water is recirculate chill water through a plate chiller while recirculating wort through it. Once the water gets hot, I dump into a bucket and eventually put it into a rain barrel and then on my garden. Saves me at least 20 gallons a week so I feel good about it, but not sure the trade off with electricity to run my pump justifies this or not. I do filter my cold water so it cuts down on how often I have to change the filter, so it might be worth it in the end. I just hate dumping water down the drain without using it for drinking or cleaning purposes...

 

[rawkstar320]

I've been trying to find ways to save water as well, not exactly do to cost (water is cheap) but also for conservational reasons and my future development of an auto brew system.

Why couldn't you rescue an old radiator of some sort (car, junkyard...) Hook your copper wort chiller onto it with an inline pump. Maybe add a fan. This would give you a closed cooling system.

If you already had the wort chiller, I bet the most expensive component would be the pump. Sparkfun as a 350gph pump that I bet would work great. ($20 I think)

Again, perfect for an automatic brewing system.

 

[user 108580]

I have two 250 gallon water tanks in my back yard that are plumbed to my down spouts. When I brew, I run a garden hose from my plate chiller out to these tanks. I have a lawn pump hooked up to my tank to water the lawn. I can also water the garden.