Sat and Sun I take stupidly long showers. Most of the week I’m a sub ten minute, cold shower kind of guy. Weekends are different.
It’s plumbed in on a 3/4" feed and has several body sprayers. Rain head, two shower heads at both ends. I enjoy my shower time. 30 minutes or longer sometimes.
Before anyone hollers because I’m abusing the water, my home is different than some. I hold an endorsement on my plumbing license that allows me to install capture/reuse systems for gray water. My shower water goes into a cistern sunk in the back yard that holds 300 gallons of gray water. It allows me to flush my commodes with gray water, and water my plants w gray water.
Installing the system has saved me hundreds if not thousands of gallons monthly, and has cut my water bill down by about 30-40%.
Ballpark my cost, including labor etc? Probably 7k all in. Thats probably a 50% discount because I did everything myself. Someone else’s cost for the exact same thing? Likely 15-18k. Possibly more now due to tariffs etc. I saved for a year beforehand.
It took a lot of work. I had to tunnel under my home and break the drainage loose at the restroom, sink the cistern, the pumps/plumbing/fittings etc were at my employers supply house discount plus multiple liberated items from said employer. It took me about three months, working on weekends, after work weekdays etc. Lot of chipping at concrete, patching concrete. I pulled a lot of favors from some guys I know to transport the cistern, used a crane to pick the cistern over my house into the back yard. I also paid a couple of my buddies who are also jman plumbers $60 an hour to come help me plumb some stuff in that I couldn’t do solo. Even got the civil engineer involved my employer keeps on retainer since I did everything above board.
I absolutely benefitted from my work connections/coworkers etc. If I didn’t have the help I did, I’d have never done it completely solo.
My shower.
Sat and Sun I take stupidly long showers. Most of the week I’m a sub ten minute, cold shower kind of guy. Weekends are different.
It’s plumbed in on a 3/4" feed and has several body sprayers. Rain head, two shower heads at both ends. I enjoy my shower time. 30 minutes or longer sometimes.
Before anyone hollers because I’m abusing the water, my home is different than some. I hold an endorsement on my plumbing license that allows me to install capture/reuse systems for gray water. My shower water goes into a cistern sunk in the back yard that holds 300 gallons of gray water. It allows me to flush my commodes with gray water, and water my plants w gray water.
Installing the system has saved me hundreds if not thousands of gallons monthly, and has cut my water bill down by about 30-40%.
What did it cost - roughly - for that cistern setup?
Ballpark my cost, including labor etc? Probably 7k all in. Thats probably a 50% discount because I did everything myself. Someone else’s cost for the exact same thing? Likely 15-18k. Possibly more now due to tariffs etc. I saved for a year beforehand.
It took a lot of work. I had to tunnel under my home and break the drainage loose at the restroom, sink the cistern, the pumps/plumbing/fittings etc were at my employers supply house discount plus multiple liberated items from said employer. It took me about three months, working on weekends, after work weekdays etc. Lot of chipping at concrete, patching concrete. I pulled a lot of favors from some guys I know to transport the cistern, used a crane to pick the cistern over my house into the back yard. I also paid a couple of my buddies who are also jman plumbers $60 an hour to come help me plumb some stuff in that I couldn’t do solo. Even got the civil engineer involved my employer keeps on retainer since I did everything above board.
I absolutely benefitted from my work connections/coworkers etc. If I didn’t have the help I did, I’d have never done it completely solo.
you water your plants with soapy water?
Glycerine based soaps are ok to use in gray water catchment systems.
Antibacterial stuff tends to fuck w soil microbes pretty bad.