HANDLING GRAY WATER SURPLUS TOMATOES AND YOUNG HENS

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Cooking scraps, soap scum and other organic matter trapped in the filter will decay and generate sewer gas containing methane (but not enough to trap and burn for heat or light). To vent this noxious gas out of the house, run a length of pipe an inch or two into the container through a grommeted hole in the lid. Cap the inside end and drill several holes in the vent pipe just above the cap. Extend the other end of the pipe via couplers and angles as needed to vent it from the house. Keep the vent pipe as straight and vertical as possible.

We have used filters such as this in low-use bedroom sinks for years without a problem. But they can clog under high-traffic sinks used for cooking, washing dishes and kids' grimy paws, and for potting plants and such. If water flow through the filter slows or backs up, the only thing you can do is dump and bury the sand and gravel and replace it. Clean out inflow and outflow tubing as well.

A larger, more efficient water-disposer is a nonfiltering, empty dry well that is better located outdoors. Find or rig a 30- to 50-gallon stout plastic container with a good-size cleanout hole covered by a removable cap. Bury it under several inches of soil with cleanout at the top.

Put a trap under the sink and run the drain to a grease trap at floor level. Thus is a brass or plastic fixture from a builders' supply outlet that holds drain water long enough for grease and oil to float to the top. Grease won't willingly break down over time and must be removed periodically through a cleanout. (If large enough quantities of grease are saved, it can be stored in a cooler and made into soap or sold to a rendering plant.)

Run the drain out of the building and down to the dry well container. Pass the drain through a grommeted hole in the container and to within an inch of the bottom. If water volume is to be small, drill holes in the upper sides of container to let water drain out into the surrounding soil. For high volume, run a leach line of perforated drain pipe from a hole in the side of the container and out horizontally for ten or 20 feet in a gravel-filled ditch. Cap the inlet opening of the leach line in side the tank and drill holes around the pipe just behind the cap. Locate so cap and drain holes are under the cleanout.

No matter how hard you try to keep food particles from going down the drain, the contents of this tank will also decay and generate gas. Vent with a foot or so of pipe inserted an inch or two through a grommeted hole in the top. Cap and drill gas-exit holes in the inside run of the vent pipe. Install an upside-down U-shaped fitting on the open, aboveground end and screen the opening to keep out rain, hugs and critters. If the odor reaches the house in really warm weather, run the vent line up beyond the roof eaves.

Expose cleanout periodically, pump out tank, bury sludge where the pigs and dogs can't get at it and clean drain and vent tube as necessary.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print