|
You are not authorized to post a reply.
|
 Prev Next
|
| Author |
Messages |
|
seandrews
Registered Users
Posts:9
 |
| 05/28/2008 2:55 PM |
|
Ok, I'm in the planning stage of my green building of a home. In my current plan my basement/foundation level is a garage with two cisterns (one for rainwater and the other for greywater). I'm building the cisterns into the foundation so I can access them via manholes from within the house as opposed to having to go outside. The cisterns would be built into the concrete foundation walls (yes, they would be wide deep walls). I have a couple of questions/concerns though. First I will be building in SW Pennsylvania. I am concerned about freeze/thaw expanding and cracking my foundation (because I would be storing water in the foundation). Also do I have to install a fiberglass cistern or can I just make it out of poured concrete (maybe using a biodegradable cardboard tube to form it)? Would water stored in concrete be drinkable (if filtered)? Also, I was thinking of builing a green roof too. Would water that passes through topsoil, is sand filtered before going into my cistern be drinkable? Thanks for any information.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brock
Registered Users
Posts:172
|
| 05/28/2008 10:37 PM |
|
You can certainly use concrete to hold water. We have a 16,000 gallon pool in our basement heated with geothermal, a very nice thermal mass. I would think you need to double wall the foundation; that is put footings to the bottom of the cistern, then pour your wall above that to the basement floor. Then inside that add a second cement shell or wall to contain the water, I have been told you can’t have the pool against the foundation wall. Outside the basement wall we have 2 inches of foam, then 2 inches of foam in between the foundation wall and pool. The entire pool has 2 inch all the way around, if I had to do it again I would have had them foam it. Being underground it will warm up. Our pool was filled with 38F water and after 6 weeks of sitting open in an 50F house it warmed up to 55F, or ground temp and sat there until the geo was in and done.
If you use it for drinking I would filter then reverse osmosis the water first. If you can keep a very low level of chlorine in it with a tiny bit of circulation that would help a lot. Most city water is about 1 ppm of chlorine, as long as you keep it above 0 things won't live in it. |
|
Green Bay, WI. - geothermal heated indoor pool with a small solar setup |
|
|
Road Block
Registered Users
Posts:46
|
| 05/29/2008 8:50 AM |
|
I've been looking at greywater systems for a number of months, nobody I've found recommends storing greywater for more than a day. All too quickly after a day the greywater is as bad as blackwater. I did find this system that seems to offer most of what I'm looking for http://www.rewater.com/, and you don't have to store the water.
I went to the solar decathlon in a couple of times this year. Everybody had a greywater system designed and repeated the standard reuse the water and make it drinkable......I asked if that was fact or fiction and was told they believe that the water could be made drinkable for a reasonable cost but in the future not right now. The best they can do is flush toilets with it and irrigate non-food and alkaline loving plants like grass with it.
|
|
|
|
|
seandrews
Registered Users
Posts:9
|
| 05/29/2008 10:36 AM |
|
My grey water cistern would be much smaller, basically for collecting water used for washing clothes, dishes, hands, taking showers, etc. and then using that water to flush the toilet. So probably an indoor tank would be better. Indoor tanks would be better all around for everything, but I just thought it would be cool to have an underground cistern with a manhole. So I can't have it connected to the foundation wall but have some kind of mass in between.
|
|
|
|
|
seandrews
Registered Users
Posts:9
|
| 05/29/2008 10:40 AM |
|
| Hey, has anyone seen a toilet with a sink on top of it ... when you flush the toilet the sink comes on and the water flows into the toilet tank? |
|
|
|
|
bobgieser
Registered Users
Posts:33
|
| 05/29/2008 9:51 PM |
|
Look at Penetron .com as an admixture to put in the concrete before you pour it. It will keep water from passing through the concrete and leaking. It's OK for potable water too. Check the website.
www.penetron.com
Hope this helps.
B.G. |
|
Bob Gieser
Sales and Technical Support
Holdfast Technologies
Master Distributor for Nudura ICFs
(916) 214-4398-cell |
|
|
M McAuley
Registered Users
Posts:4
|
| 05/31/2008 12:50 AM |
|
It's an interesting concept but it's a really poor location. Unless the room is designed to make it accessible - the faucet is about 15 inches away from where you'd want it in the majority of bathrooms - then it seems to have limited use.
Michael
|
|
|
|
|
CaelandCoen
Registered Users
Posts:2
|
| 06/02/2008 3:32 PM |
|
Brock,
You have a pool in your basement? How does that work? What type of foundation? Humidity? I believe I live in a very similar climate to yours. |
|
|
|
|
Brock
Registered Users
Posts:172
|
| 06/03/2008 10:42 AM |
|
| Yes we have a pool in our home, I have a pool web page with a bunch more info on it. If I missed something on that page let me know I will try to answer it. |
|
Green Bay, WI. - geothermal heated indoor pool with a small solar setup |
|
|
|
| You are not authorized to post a reply. |
|
|
|
ActiveForums 3.6
|
Professionals Serving
Your Location:
GBT Project Albums:
|