Greywater Project: A Very Basic Filtration Bed

We took time our first years here for observation, analysis, and planning. At that time, we had three areas for self-reliance that we wanted develop: food, energy, and water. Water conservation and stewardship included rainwater collection and greywater usage. For rainwater, we started with collection tanks. For greywater, we added a couple of ideas to our master plan, where we identified two potential areas to use it.

Greywater is a topic we researched carefully because there are precautions that must be taken. We bought Art Ludwig’s Create an Oasis With Greywater (my book review here), and I researched dos and don’ts for household soaps, detergents, and cleaners (that blog post here.) We experimented some too, and used it to water tall plants like okra and corn. From those experiments, we felt that some sort of filtration would work best for us. 

When the summer rains became less frequent this month we got to talking about this. We got out our master plan (above) and discussed how we could construct a greywater wetland. Originally, the wetland idea was for a constructed filtration bed with rock, gravel, sand, and soil, plus water filtering plants. From there, it would drain out to the pasture. This would have required a lot of work, but we don’t have the time or resources for an extensive project right now. Another commonly used idea for greywater, is a mulch pit. We got to wondering if we couldn’t mulch pit that drained into our pasture swale. It would be  a first step experiment, just to see how it would do. 

The greywater drainage pipe was already in place. Dan installed it in 2016, complete with a bypass valve to direct the greywater either to the garden or to the septic tank. We haven’t used it in several years, but this summer seemed the time to put it to use again. We brainstormed. For the mulch bed, we had a cracked water tote with five good sides. Dan cut it down and that made a start.

Periodically, this will need to be cleaned out and fresh chips added. The old chips will get mixed into a new compost pile, and the bed refilled with fresh chips, or even better, a combination of wood chips and biochar.