Our washing machine empties into an old bath tub which drains through several pipes into different garden areas. It takes some stress off of our septic system and waters where needed.

Gray water systems is the topic of the March 12th Santa barbara rose society meeting if you are interested

Kippy -- We hope to be there on Thursday for that program. I'd say wer'e 90% positive. I hope the cuttings do well.

We have been diverting our grey water to our south facing rose beds for about two decades. Yep. Here in the east. We rebuilt our old farmhouse and I decided that since we were pumping well water I should get as much use out of it as possible. That which has to go to the septic tank, does. The rest goes to the rose gardens.

At that time, the state of California was giving away a multipage paper on grey water usage. On selecting detergents, it specified liquid detergents, as the granular ones had excess filler that were worthless.

Over these decades, I've found several things: even cutting down on abrasives, comet does accumulate in more narrow pipes and has to be shaken out. In our winter, which is wet, evaporation decreases a lot and some areas get soggy. We are on a hill. We own 160 acres and where we discharge grey water is our own mountain side. Some roses really love to be on their own water service.

You are correct that you are not supposed to use Gray Water for plants you will eat. You can contact your city's Sanitation Bureau to see how to use Gray Water safely and legally. Here is a link from Los Angeles City: Gray Water Flyer. BTW, sinks where dishes are washed,
and dishwashers are not acceptable sources of
graywater.

Great, thank you for all the good feedback everyone! I'm glad to see that others are doing the same and even taking it much further than me.

Jeri, when you say " Now, that water goes out into a 32-G trash can so it can "settle" before we use it on plants" what do you mean by settling since I had only read or been told that that water is classified as black water and shouldn't be used in the garden?

Also, I had read on one site that it was ok to use grey water on fruit trees as long as it doesn't splash on the fruit it's self. Is this correct?

Thanks!

Brian

Brian, while many who posted are experts on roses, much of what is suggested is illegal in California. Due to the drought, regulations need to be looked at closely. I went to a symposium where water experts and regulators gathered to discuss Australia as a possible model for gray water use. Look to your County's Department of Public Health-Environmental Health or your city's Bureau of Sanitation for what is legal in your area and hopefully get interested in needed legislative change if necessary.

Brian, our water is yucky enough, even without dish detergent, say. So, we let it sit, so that particulate matter sinks to the bottom, and we can scoop bucketfuls of it off the top.

As for legalities . . . As I understand it, "greywater" (this is not the same as "blackwater") use has been legal in Santa Barbara County, CA, for years. It was long illegal in VENTURA County, CA (where I live). That changed, I guess, in 2007. The County does have some strict guidelines, however. SEE: http://www.ventura.org/rma/build_safe/water-use.html

But in practice, there are people here in Ventura County who have shower/laundry water set up to go into the garden without a lot of fuss. (Not professionally plumbed.)

You understand the difference between "greywater" and "blackwater", right?

"The key difference between the two is that black water has come into
contact with fecal matter. Fecal matter is a haven for harmful bacteria and disease-causing pathogens. Additionally, this waste doesn't break down and decompose in water fast or effectively enough for use in domestic irrigation without the risk of contamination."
SEE: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/gray-water-reclamation1.htm

This is worth considering:

"So what ingredients in soap cause the most problems for plant life? The three prime suspects are sodium, chlorine and boron.
Some plants may be harmed right away; others are damaged slowly, as
elements have time to build up in the soil. If you're intending to use
soapy water in the garden, choose cleaners that don't contain this
particular trio. Additionally, while your plants can absorb low levels
of phosphorous as nutrients, the high volumes found in some soaps can be
harmful. Luckily, there are a number of low-phosphate soaps available."

We've always been careful about laundry/sink detergent ingredients because we're on a septic system -- so we're a step ahead there already.

If it helps, there is a thread on the best fertilizer for fruit trees on the fruit tree forum.....diluted urine

Speeds up compost, too, I gather. :-) Did you ever read "The 3,000 Mile Garden"?? Interesting stuff in there about composting waste.

But you do get odd looks when you invite your gentlemen guests to use the fence......(to keep the skunks away. Seems male scent works)

I have not read that book

It's a lovely little thing. I got it "remaindered." Leslie Land and Roger Phillips.

It is important to clarify the legalities...although Graywater is untreated waste water that has not come
into contact with toilet waste, it does NOT include
waste water from kitchen sinks or dishwashers as per California Health and Safety Code 17922.12. Counties and cities within California are not allowed to enact codes LESS strict than the California state code. Brian, I'm glad you posted this subject, because in this time of drought information can be confusing or unknown and it is good to get the information out there. Here is a link to the guide from Ventura: Ventura Greywater. Here is the Graywater fact sheet from Santa Barbara: Graywater Fact Sheet. I previously posted the guide for Los Angeles, but will do again so here: Graywater Los Angeles. All reflect the State code in that it is unlawful to use waste water from kitchen sinks or dishwashers for irrigation. Graywater from laundry is legal if set up properly. But you must look to your city/county for guidance. Violation would mean being guilty of a misdemeanor.

I'm in Australia, and I just can't understand why you guys have all these crazy rules concerning greywater! We have been doing it for a long time over here and we're not dying off :)

In particular, why can't you use water that you've washed your dishes in to water your plants?! I mean, the only stuff that's going to be in that water is detergent and some tiny bits of food leftover from the rest of the meal that you have already put into your mouth and eaten! Seems crazy that it's good enough to eat, but too 'dirty' to water your roses with.

The water experts and regulators at the Symposium I attended in California this month said they are looking to Australia as model. They said in Australia, you can buy a graywater system at a home supply or hardware store. But changes in legislature take time and support. The drought makes it a pressing issue.

Our dishwater has -- informally -- been going into our garden for years now. I don't feel like a felon. :-)

Thanks again for all the information. I didn't realize that it could actually be against the law to dump soapy dish water. I definitely will look into it though. I kind of agree with Jeri though, as long as I don't have a professional system set up and my plants are doing just fine with me pouring diluted soapy water from a bucket, I don't see much harm in it.

I won't be available to drive the 3 hours+ to the meeting in Santa Barbara, but it would be great if others could post on what they learned from it and share with us :)

Lol, it's not a felony, but it is a misdemeanor crime if done improperly. I hope no one was offended by my response. I'm just trying to get information out there and if this sparks legislative envolvement or interest, all the better. I know people are getting creative, because of the drought and my main concern is for everyone to be safe. One person's "creativity" in L.A. County led to a boil water order for a whole community.

It is time to change, that and make sure everyone has a water meter, no county/city/hoa can demand a front yard lawn, require some attempt at keeping water on the same lot it landed in, and for those with massive estates, a limit to the over all use of water for lawns and landscaping.....

Thanks to the rain, in the past 5 months, we have used less than 1/2 of what a Montecito estate gets to use in one month JUST for household use.

Oh Jasminerose, I'm not offended and I don't think Brian is either. I know that some laws are just silly, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to bring about a change (oh yeah, we've got out fair share of silly laws over here too, don't worry about that!).

It's great that they're looking at the issue over there. I remember reading somewhere that there are a lot of rules about rainwater harvesting over there too, which is another thing we've been doing since, well, since the British colonised us! We certainly can buy greywater and rainwater kits at the local hardware store here, and we can also get a rebate from the government for installing them in our homes. We can also plumb our greywater back into the house to use in our toilets.

Black water is a bit of a different issue here, and there are a lot more rules about that, but we can install black water treatment systems in our homes and then use the treated water to irrigate our land, so long as the irrigation is sub-surface. Treatment systems are very expensive, and a lot of people still feel funny about using black water, so it's not common.

We actually started to drive to the meeting, but had an unexpected problem, and had to come home. DARNIT!

I'm not going to mess with black water ... But my G-Grandmother used dishwater to water her roses, and I have no problem with doing the same thing. Shower water ... Laundry water ... For a long time this WAS illegal in my County -- but no more.

And I figure that, EVENTUALLY, some change in the law will also curtail the amount of water our neighbor sends running down the street, laced with high-nitrogen fertilizer and weed-killer. At least, I HOPE it will.

Thank you, muscowduckling and others on the gardenweb for your comments and to Brian for starting the post. I'm glad the U.S. is looking to Australia, because this global warming/drought issue is really a world issue. I hope to go to Australia someday :)

Update from the meeting.

The topic was Laundry to Landscape so that was the focus of the talk. You can find details on the Laundry to Landscape website. Very basically, it is adding a 3 way valve to your stand pipe for the washer drain line, outside adding an outside vent to your graywater line, running the lines to the yard, setting up 6 to 8 basins, using ball valves to set discharge rates, and covering with at least 2 inches of mulch and using the right kind of soap (Oasis)

This has been legal in California since 2009. Since 2011 no city could legislate out the law. So yes if you live in California you can do this version of Laundry to Landscape

It was noted that every year 400 people are struck by lightening in the USA and that is 400 more than have been documented to get ill from using gray water for landscape and fruit trees.

To me, more interesting was the comment that enough rain falls on our town in a season to meet our water needs. The problem is we put most of that back in the ocean. Our town has a "confining layer" that prevents the ground water basins from recharging. The good news for me personally, is our garden is beyond this confining layer, or the reason the city of Santa Barbara has more of a drought problem than the city of Goleta since they can recharge ground water. Keeping the rain on our properties seems all the more important after listing to the talk......and adding a Laundry to Landscape system.

On the kitchen sink water, many states allow it. The reason CA does not is that it is too hard to regulate people who are not aware of what should not be reused like "meat" water vs rinse water. Maybe what we need is to consider a 3 way valve under dual basin sinks so a dedicated rinse side could be used while a dedicated dirty side would be down the sewer/septic.

The 3 way valve is so you can decide to send bad water to the sewer/septic system and not on your landscape (like if you are washing diapers, oily work clothing or bleached loads)

Thanks for explaining it so well, Kippy. Most cities have flyers to explain how to do it the right way, but the way you explained it is very clear.

Thanks Kippy -- I'm going to copy this, and send it to DH.

On one of the slides for the powerpoint, there was a way to buy the basic washer kit. The big thing would be the 3 way ball valve and air gap. The rest looked like simiple Home Depot type parts. Picking your 6-8 zones you would want to flood (under the mulch) is probably the hard part and the only real technical part is how you make a hole in the wall to run your line out should you want to do that (assuming washer in the garage)

The rest really looked like a fun weekend project.

AND some cities will pay for part of the design and installation should you want to have some one else do that part for you.

Not, I bet, Ventura County (we are in the County, not the City of Camarillo).

But then, the City isn't very serious about saving water, either. They're still in a mode of "How many more developments can we approve?" (And fortunately, the people of the City are getting serious about stopping that.)

It is something anyone thinking of working on their landscape watering system should check in to. I can get 50% back on what I spend on drip system stuff. But I have to admit that I did not think it was worth the hassle of meeting for inspections etc for the less than $40 bucks I would get back since I have been adding to the system over the past few years and this is just for the new trees and roses.

I wonder how much it would be to pay to have someone do this. My garden was so fried last summer with the water restrictions and from what I hear, those restrictions are light. It's going to get worse.

Jamine, they have programs here where you can help with a couple of others or if not physically able, help with other things like manning the earthday booth. But I think she said they usually charge something between $1500-$2000. Other than the right valve, the rest looks pretty easy, so maybe just having someone putting in the valve and running the line outside would be all that you really needed help with. The pipe is a lot like playing with grown up tinker toys/legos in figuring out how to get it the way you want. Since there is no actual water pressure it is not like you have to be the best at plumbing joints being pressure tight.

The other thing I forgot to note was what she said about having the mulch in these basins, you put them a bit away from the plants and that encourages the plants to put out more deeper roots to get to the graywater. That alone encourages drought tolerance. The other thing is putting down a thick layer of compost covered in the mulch over time turns the soil more in to a sponge that better absorbs and holds water be it rain or irrigation.

Creating "walls/curbs" around your plantings and adding compost and mulch in the root zone is something pretty much every California garden needs

Mulch helps a lot. I think I will call my water company to see if we have any programs. Thanks.

A simple solution I've found for using kitchen sink water on my garden is to use a double bowl sink. One bowl of the sink is used for yucky stuff, and the waste from this bowl is plumbed into the sewer. The other bowl is used for clean rinse stuff, and the waste from this bowl is plumbed to the garden. Since it's never a whole lot of water coming from the kitchen sink I don't need to worry about ball valves etc, it just goes straight onto the garden. ETA: this is not legal. But I don't lose sleep over it.

For anyone who's thinking about plumbing their laundry water to the garden and using mulch pits as filters, have a look at swale/berm theory. It sounds like a lot of you guys are using this already. Generally, you dig a ditch (swale) on contour, so that it's level, and fill this with mulch. On the downhill side of the ditch, mound up the dirt you dig out of the ditch to form a little embankment (berm) all the way along the ditch. Then, just downhill from your embankment, plant your fruit trees/anything that needs lots of water. Most people use the swale to catch rainwater and keep it on property, so that it sits in the ditch and slowly soaks into the ground. But it would also be good to run your laundry water pipe into your swales.

I bought a 100 gallon tank and drain the washer water into it. I am fortunate to have a washer that drains into a utility sink. I bought the appropriate sized/length hose and drain it into the barrel. I have a huge plastic bin that can hold extra water. I use a wagon, fill up buckets and haul the water around my corner property. Plant based detergent does not harm the plants or lawn. I use the water from the clorox loads to clean my patio. I have 3 dogs and it needs rinsing. The rinse water is so clear that I put it in a little pool for the dogs on hot days. I wash the cars, clean paint brushes, brooms etc. with the water. I've done it for a year and have drastically cut my water usage. I noticed yesterday that my outdoor water hoses have spider webs on them. The water departements should be instructing people about grey water usage.

A neighbor of ours hired a contractor to put in an "official" grey water irrigation system, which has finally been approved by the State of CA. Ha! The city we live in had no idea what they were talking about (cities are the ones who are supposed to permit them), and so they went ahead and did it anyway, and waited for the City to catch up with them, which they eventually did - very embarrassed, as we are in a very bad drought. They did change their laundry detergent to make it plant friendly, but that's all they had to do themselves. Of course, it cost over $10,000.

Jackie

I'm glad they got it in! I wonder how that compares to putting in a conventional irrigation system. It's pretty prohibitive to put one in in Oregon....the permitting process is overwhelming. It's like you say, Jacqueline, the local authorities don't really understand it.

When I lived in Tucson there was so much great work around grey water harvesting....I think you've all heard it before from me! Hopefully the rest of the dry west will see what they're doing (very easy government process and plenty of non-profits that help set folks up) and follow suit. Lots of good work around capturing rain water to support the water table, too.

Down here in Southern California, salvaging rain water isn't going to be useful. There's just not enough of it. Our property IS set up, though, that every drop that does fall here goes into the garden. Every. Drop.

Shower warm up water.

Dish water.

We'd do something about laundry water, but this house was built in the 1940's by amateurs, and the plumbing is wonky to begin with, so that's just not feasible.

I do, however, feel stirrings of anger when I watch our neighbors empty their swimming pool down the street, because they fear their grandchildren may have pee'd in it.

They should empty their swimming pool into Lake Mead. It could use the water! Just kidding…sort of.

Wow, Jeri, that is absolutely enraging! Even if the pee actually caused harm it would be enraging, but given the fact that a child's pee is pretty harmless as it would be significantly diluted in the pool, kids wouldn't likely be on medications or carry much disease, and, well, the chlorine in their pool probably kills any small amount of bacteria that would perhaps be found....ugh.

Imagine me standing there while she talks about "pee fear" . . . With my mouth wide open . . .