difference between greywater and septic?
12 years ago
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Water-Loving Tree Between a Driveway and a Septic Leach Field
Comments (7)welcome!!! two new acres .. and you are fixated on this BAD SPOT ... i had the same problem when i moved to acreage ... enjoy this summer working on the other 1.98 acres ... you just moved in.. how about .. not unlike a scientific experiment.. you spend the next year or two.. studying this spot.. and its YEAR ROUND water patterns ... and THEN think about planting something there.. you just moved in.. how have you come to conclusions at this point???? .. heck i am in adrian MI. and in a normal spring.. the ground would have thawed barely last week ... and it is not uncommon to have standing water at such time ... if water does actually remain a year round issue.. how about you fill in the hole.. regrade.. or whatever.. and then think about planting there... and i am pretty sure.. no tree .. will fix a drainage or water issue ... come on wench.. you're a lab rat.. think analytically ... my total GUESS... its a transitory spring issue.. and most likely.. you are not limited as to plant choice.. depending on your native soil structure ... i would start .. by digging a hole .. and finding out if you are dealing with clay .... and then do a perk test.. as to drainage in your garden ... then the yearly water pattern ... and then a plant ... i hope that is gentle enough.. i got wound up on your lab-ness ... and analogizing to that ... good luck ... ken...See MoreGreywater
Comments (38)The continuing saga of the grey water continues with a happy ending! WE lived thru the retrofit of our bathroom and although the contractor got cold feet about pursuing the grey water option out in the open and gettign a permit for it, we did work with our plumber to plumb in so afdter final inspection we could easily divert all our tub, shower and sink water to a greywater line and only toilet water would go to the septic tank. We followed all of Art Ludwig's advice in above mentioned books and we have a system that is permitable in my estimation: using all the correct pipes, fittings, etc. We ended up with no open water at all.....since in theory that is not legal, but have a created a subsurface discharge into a branched drain mulch basin. The basin is 2 feet deep and roughly 6 by 8 feet...that was the hard part, digging the hole! The dirt got spread all around our yard. The greywater line from the house (which although the plumber tried to conserve as much fall as possible.)..exited lower than we had hoped...a few inches below the soil level so we had to dig a sloping trench away from the house since the mulch basin was a good 8 feet from the foundation. The pipe made a 90 degree turn and split into two pipes with backflwo valves which lead into two 25 gallon barrels with holes drilled in the sides and bottom cut out. These are the surge tanks to accomodate a large flow from emptying the tub (45 gallon capacity). Then it was time to plant. I wanted something archtectural that could evapotranspirate and look good. I settled on chondopetalum tectorium which I bought in one gallon containers, 3 of them. I was concerned about the roots eventually growing into the surge tanks so I took landscape cloth and sewed large bags...probably two feet in diameter and 3 feet tall...dropped them into the basin, backfilled with soil and planted each restio into one of 3 bags, with a loose drawstring top. Then we back filled the whole basin which a coarse goround mulch of bark, twigs, etc. and top dressed that with some cedar chip mulch already in the garden. Now you would never now that planting bed is actually a grey water bog! It has been 6 months and I wanted to wait until I had some winter weather and lots of rain to see how things would perform. So far, so good. I have not actually removed any mulch to remove the cover of the surge tanks to see what is going on in there...but definitely no standing water anywhere and we have had alot of rain this past week. One very good thing when we were digging the mulch basin was that we uncovered the drain pipe installed by a previous owner to drain the patio. We tied the nearby downspout into that solid pipe. We also damaged the water line going to the lawn sprinklers and that is how we found out about telescoping fittings! ITs amazing what you can find underground with a pickaxe! I am about to transplant some one year old native cornus shrubs (which are pond peripherals in native habitat and look crappy in my yard because they have to survive on little water in the summer)to the edges of the basin. I am hoping they will tap in to the moisture there and look better come summer. SO look fowrd to another report next fall when we have had a full summer of heat to see how things go. Claire PS: Pookie is well too...he will be 7 this February and so is my DH who did alot of the digging and plumbing! I am disappointed I did not get a pond out of the deal, but I am growing plants that I would normally grow since they requiremore water than I am willing to give them....See MoreEasement for septic field - ok or avoid?
Comments (17)LOL! After reading how you spent your 25th anniversary, I have to share... After we bought our first house (a bit of a fixer upper) thirty years ago, DH and I began to call our weekly trips to hardware stores our "dates." Sometime, even when we didn't need anything right then, or couldn't afford to buy what we wanted for the next project, we'd go just to wander the aisles and dream about what we would buy - when we could afford it - to further fix up the house. After 15 years or so, we finally got that house as close to our liking as we could get it so our "dates" to the hardware stores dwindled and, to be quite honest, I missed them. Somehow dinner and a movie just wasn't the same! Then we bought property out in the country to build our dream home and started having "dates" at the hardware stores again! And we also started doing things like spending entire weekends out on the land clearing brush by hand and sometimes just walking around getting to know the land. We had nearly five years of those kinds of dates before we got the land paid off and were ready to start building. And, one of my very favorite Christmas memories is from 8 months after we finally broke ground. Our builder had promised us that we'd be in our new home by Christmas but at that point, all we had a dried-in shell with bare stud walls inside. And, we'd been having so many issues with our builder that we knew we were going to have to fire him and were so scared of the financial ramifications of doing so that we didn't want to spend ANY money on travel or fancy gifts. Needless to say, it was NOT exactly shaping up to be a very happy Christmas because it seemed like everything we had dreamed about was going totally sour. But then, on the spur of the moment, Christmas afternoon, we decided to pack up our Christmas dinner, along with a camp stove to reheat things, a bunch of candles, a card table and a couple of folding chairs, and drive out to the new house. We wound up having a lovely Christmas dinner by candlelight in the middle of the stud walls in our future dining room and then sitting out on the porch gazing at the stars and talking. It restored my faith that somehow everything would all come out all right as long as the two of us stuck together. Romance is all in how you look at things!...See MoreSeptic tank level above outlet tee - poor choice of filter?
Comments (3)The better the filter does its job the more FREQUENTLY the filter will need to be cleaned and that is easy to do. Although our septic usage allows for pumping every 4-5 years I have to clean my filter every 6 months or EXACTLY what you describe happens until the septic backs up into the house. A small inconvenience for the increased service life of the leach field the filter promotes....See MoreRelated Professionals
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