Thursday, October 09, 2008

Graywater in Action


So I'm home today, getting ready to go camping and waiting for the Southwest Chief to roll into Los Angeles Union Station (it's now predicted to be almost 8 hours late.) The house is clean. I'm just loading more CDs onto my iPod, doing laundry and checking the Amtrak site every hour or so.

I've been thinking about using more graywater, but my dish soap is kind of gunky when I'm done with it. But lookie here! This is where the water comes out of the washing machine and goes down the drain. I'd thought about putting a bucket there, but even though our front loader uses tens of gallons less water than a top loader, it's still potentially more than my 5 gallon bucket could handle.



But hey! I'm not in another room furiously pounding away on some writing project or reorganizing bookshelves or, ahem, watching television. When I heard the final rinse water start to gurgle out, it was really easy to just stick the watering can under the hose and capture it.

I turned the washer off and on and off again so there was no spillage. It filled up a lot faster than it does in the sink.

And viola! Only slightly gray water for the appreciative plants on the front porch. This is sooo cool!

More about the Southwest Chief. My mom's arriving on it today. It was supposed to come in at 8:15 a.m. After several postponements due to engine problems, having to replace the crew in Kingman, AZ and freight train induced railway congestion around Los Angeles, it's now looking more like 4:00 p.m.

I'm just glad she's on a train for this delay and not roasting somewhere on a runway.

6 comments:

Liz Dwyer said...

I saw your Facebook update about graywater and was totally wondering what you meant. Thanks for the play by play explanation!

I hope your mom has arrived by now, safe and sound. That's a LONG time to be on a train. So excited for you.

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea...one we could all use to some extent. Thanks for the education.
By the way-how long does it take your mom to come out on the train?
Deb

Anonymous said...

I never even heard of graywater!

This is awesome.

Sundry said...

Los Angelista - She ended up being 10 hours late! We're just glad that she was on a train rather than a plane. At least she could move around. The train stopped to buy them all fast food lunches. And I had all of downtown L.A. to roam while I waited.

Deb - She boarded at Waterloo, IN around 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, I think. There's a long layover in Chicago of 4 or 5 hours. She was supposed to arrive at 8:15 Thursday morning. So that would have been about 46 hours total from Waterloo.

Stace - Some people actually have tanks to capture water from washers and dishwashers, even showers, and use it for their lawns. I'm just recapturing a few gallons...but I'm pretty happy about even that.

Anonymous said...

You put it in the refrigerator and told me it was lemon aid. As Nancy Kerrigan said, "Why, why, why?"

Hydra

Sundry said...

Hydra - Wait till you get a load of what's in the broccoli soup!