water requirements

In developing requirements for the Homestead Example, we determined that 280 liters/day of potable water was required to sustain a family of four. What design solutions can meet that requirement? Some options include using rainwater catchment basins, drilling wells, collecting lakewater, recycling wastewater, or combinations thereof.

This is the first of many posts I’ll have on grey water recycling. Grey water is essentially all wastewater that doesn’t need a toilet (that’s known as black water). Most buildings discharge grey water into the sewer or septic system, but there are concerns with both methods. First, post-peak, how reliable will your city sewer/water treatment system be? Second, running less waste through a septic system means less demand on that critical system. And in both cases why waste such a large quantity of water that, when properly handled, can be used for irrigation?

Just to get the designer wheels in your head started spinning, Peak Energy posted a good link to a story about a successful ground heat pump.