Questions about going green

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Permalink Reply by Darryl Parker on March 7, 2008 at 4:50am

Sean,

You certainly aren't the only one interested in going green. Welcome!

I did have a group - Sustian - which stands for "Sustainable Citizen" - I can get that going again. Look for the sunflower icon.

Darryl

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Permalink Reply by Carol Buie-Jackson on March 12, 2008 at 9:04am

D
Didn't you have a solar hot water heater installed a couple of years ago? Do you have that guy's contact info? If so, pls share. We would like to invite him to participate in the Earth Day festival. Thx

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Permalink Reply by Sean McNamara on March 7, 2008 at 8:50am

Excellent. I will look for the group. Thanks, Darryl.

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Permalink Reply by Carol Buie-Jackson on March 7, 2008 at 10:56am

Order your rain barrels through HAWK! We are taking orders now for delivery of rain barrels at the Earth Day Festival on April 26 at Stumptown Park. A 60 gal is $85 and 80 gallons is $100. Send an email to me at hawkncwf@gmail.com and we will get you on the list. These are the same rain barrels offered by Meck County.

And for your second question, at the May meeting of HAWK, we have a solar energy company scheduled to speak to the group about solar energy. Our meetings are the first Tuesday of each month (Sept-May) at the Matthews Community Center.

I do not know about the grey water recycling, but will forward your question to the Chairman of the Soil and Water Conservation Board with Meck County, (he's a member of HAWK), and see if I can get you an answer.

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Permalink Reply by Sean McNamara on March 7, 2008 at 11:15am

Thanks, Carol. I will order 2 60 gallon barrels.

I will also attend HAWK meetings.

Grey water recycling basically collects your home waste water and cleans it up enough to be reused for the toilets in your home. It typically costs less than $2k to install a system, and since at least one thrid of the water used in a typical home is flush water, you can see the savings that can amount. Not to mention that it just makes sense to conserve water whereever possible.

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Permalink Reply by Gray Newman on March 8, 2008 at 7:52pm

I am not aware of any companies that install systems that do that. I am sure they are out there, I just don't know them.

It is currently against the law in NC to use gray water for irrigation here in NC. This does not make a lot of sense to me because we are allowed to spread cow poo on our lawns but we can't use reclaimed shower water? Go figure.

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Permalink Reply by Carol Buie-Jackson on March 8, 2008 at 10:07pm

Gray, could you collect the gray water in a cistern then use the cistern water to flush the toilets?

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Permalink Reply by Gray Newman on March 9, 2008 at 10:16am

I think that would be legal since the water would have to go through a filtering process before it would be returned to the environment but let me check with DENR on Monday.

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Permalink Reply by Sean McNamara on March 9, 2008 at 5:43pm

I think the concern with using grey water to irrigate would be that there is little control on what people put down their drains and/or toilets. What I am reffering to is a system installed by licensed plumbers that collect and treat grey water, and then cycle it to be used for toilet flushing only. I will get the names of some companies that supply the components and post them here.

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Permalink Reply by Gray Newman on March 12, 2008 at 9:12am

Gov. Easley just sent out a press release that mentions easing up on the rules concerning grey water.

http://www.governor.state.nc.us/News_FullStory.asp

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Permalink Reply by Sean McNamara on March 10, 2008 at 11:54am

Here are a couple of resources:

greywater recycling for irrigation: http://www.thenaturalhome.com/greywater.html

grey water recycling for indoor use: http://www.bracsystems.com/home.html

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