Saturday, September 18, 2004
Hatttrick for Sustainability III: Residential Water Use
This is actually a Trifecta of Hattricks for Sustainability! It is a compliation of 9 (3 sets of 3) technologies that can combine to revamp residential water systems as we know them. Most people are aware of and can do something about conserving energy. A big problem in most of the country, however, is shrinking water availability. This list will conserve both water and energy.Incoming Water:
Rainwater Collection + Home Fire Sprinklers + Waste Water Heat Recovery
+
Heating Water:
Air Conditioning Waste Heat + Solar Water Heating + Instantaneous Water Heating
+
Waste Water:
Grey Water Reuse + Drip Irrigation + Composting Toilets
=
Almost total reuse of water + no waste water leaving + added safety to home + less energy needed to heat water.
Rainwater can be collected from roofs and stored until it's needed. Then it is filtered and goes into the house and splits into cold and hot water pipes. The cold water pipe goes to...
Home sprinkler system on its way to the points of use. This is an increasingly popular option in new homes. Cold water pipes have additional branches on them and go to every room in the house, not just where water is actually used. These branches then have sprinklers on them. If these pipes are correctly sized, the water pressure of the house should activate the sprinklers without a problem. Paralleling this, the hot water goes to....
Waste water heat recovery. This is a system wherein the water pipe is tightly wrapped around the waste pipe and any heat from the dishwasher or shower waste water transfers to the incoming cold water. The new hot water continues its journey to the...
Air conditioning waste heat recovery. This is similar to what is described above except that it uses the heat recovered from the house through its air conditioning system. This hot water is then stored in heavily insulated tanks. This water can be kept at a high temperature using....
Solar water heating. This would be accomplished by using hot air created in a solar collector to heat the water in the tank. When the water is needed, and if it is not quite hot enough, it can be passed through an....
Instantaneous water heater. These can be either gas or electric and can be located in the bathrooms with showers. Most dishwashers and washers have heaters on them already for their hot water use. Once the water is used it passes through the waste water recovery pipe to go to.....
Grey water reuse collection. Here, any water collected from non-toilet sources (grey water) is stored until it is needed by a....
Drip irrigation system. This differs from normal watering of lawns or plants in that there is no sprinkler and the water is delivered directly to the plant roots through hoses. Grey water is also extremely good for plants. Of course this is only grey water; there is still the matter of toilets to consider. For this, the house can have....
Composting toilets. These toilets collect waste and break it down until its usable as compost. It conserves water in two ways. 1) There is no water connected to them. 2) Waste water from other sources in the house will not be contaminated, enabling it to be grey water and can therefore be reused.
An option that can be added to this would be a Living Machine. In this case, the house would not necessarily need composting toilets and the entire waste stream of the house can be combined with the rain water. This water can be passed through the Living Machine where it is filtered. At different stages of the filtration, the water can be used, for example, in the drip irrigation system.