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hello!

my question is this – all of my 2′ greywater pipes are visible in the crawlspace of my house before they connect to the 3′ blackwater pipe. I would like to send this water into the landscape. Where they are right now, they are just barely above ground level where they connect. It seems like a lot of excess work to have EACH pipe exit the foundation (cutting a hole through the concrete/cinderblocks). Would there be anything logistically or systemically wrong with piping each one of these greywater pipes into 1 pipe that can exit my crawlspace through 1 hole and then branch after it leaves the house??

 

thanks a lot

nick

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Hi Nick,

Combining your greywater pipes before exiting the crawlspace is definitely one good option. I would recommend you plan out the rest of your greywater system to make sure it’s the best option for you.

If your greywater sources are geographically located in such a way that you could use them to irrigate separate sections of your landscape with a gravity flow system, than it may be worth it to exit the foundation multiple times. However, if your system will require a pump, than it’s definitely easier to combine flows and exit once. And perhaps you could even combine flows, exit once, and still utilize a gravity flow system.

If you’re not aware of the laundry-to-landscape system, be sure to check it out: this will give you another source that can hopefully exit above your foundation!

I have a lot more technical info and construction steps for designing and installing greywater systems in my book The Water-Wise Home.

Lastly, if you’re getting a permit for your system you’ll want to make sure the combination of flows is small enough to use a 2″ pipe and not have to bump up to 3″ (it depends on the number and types of fixtures entering the pipe, your local inspector could help you determine this).

Good luck with your system!

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Hi Nick,

In CA you would be fine with those fixtures using a 2″ pipe, and codes tend to give  buffer/safety factor, so even if Colorado code was slightly different it should be fine!

Kitchen water is gunkier and greasier than showers, so you could either make a dedicated system for it and maintain those mulch basins more frequently, or dilute it with the shower water and probably have a slightly increased maintenance interval on the entire system. Either way would be fine I think.

There are more design considerations that you’ll find in my book. After you check it out feel free to post more questions! And thank you for asking about where to get the book. Unless I sell it to you in person it doesn’t make a difference which place you purchase, though local bookstores are better for our communities than Amazon is 🙂

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great! is there another place to buy your book? i have heard from other authors that amazon doesn’t compensate the authors very well. I am definitely gonna get a copy.

 

Everything that I intend to irrigate with the greywater(several on contour basins for tree plantings) is lower in elevation than the pipes, so gravity seems like the best bet. I do not plan on pulling permits for the system, I live in a semi rural part of colorado. There are 5 greywater pipes, 2 bathroom sinks, 2 bathroom showers, and 1 kitchen sink. Would a 2′ pipe still make sense for this? also i have heard that kitchen sink water is usually dealt with in a slightly different manner than other greywater, would it still make sense to pipe all of these together to leave the house?

I was thinking once it left the house it could then be split into the different basins….

thanks a lot for your help and let me know if there are any other design considerations i should make.

oh yea and yes i am familiar with the l2l types of systems and i intend to utilize that as well.

 

 

 

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