Water with Wash Water

Benefits
Environmental Benefit: ★★★★☆

By using washing machine water to water your yard, you reduce your household water use by effectively using the water twice!

Money Saved: ★★☆☆☆

The average water use for home washing machines is about 5,000 gallons a year - so the money saved by "saving" this much water isn't a fortune. You will also need to have a tank and something to transfer the water outdoors, so I don't see a lot of money savings here.

Lifestyle Benefit: ★★☆☆☆

It's more work and hassle to water this way than the usual methods. But if you are in a drought area with watering restrictions, this can be a way to water your ornamentals without using extra water!

What We're Doing

In the picture, you can see a water tank sitting up on cement blocks next to your washing machine. The tank is the type they make for RVs, but with one end cut off (could just cut a hole in it too). The drain hose from the washing machine just feeds into this tank instead of the regular drain. The bottom of the tank has a valve and hose attachment on it. After doing laundry, Shannon attaches a regular garden hose to the bottom of the tank, and runs it out the window to where she waters some of her flowers and trees with it. Since the tank is up on blocks, gravity feed is enough to drain the tank and no pump is needed. You don't want to leave the dirty water sitting around in the tank too long (days) as it can get smelly. Also, when you water with gray water like this you don't want to use water that has bleach in it or detergents containing boron - as these are hard on plants. The way we've got this set up, it is easy to move the drain hose over to the regular drain if we don't want to water with the water from a particular load of laundry (for example, if you've just washed a load of diapers!). You should also probably check your local greywater regulations - they vary quite a bit from place to place and using greywater like this isn't legal in some locations.

Links

Here's a link with some helpful information on using wash water for watering your plants!

http://www.howtodothings.com/home-garden/how-to-recycle-water-from-the-washing-machine

A Little Humor

Al Gore's Green Tips
(Edited by Ken Gammage)

#2. Wear your clothes four times before washing. There really is no such thing as an environmentally friendly detergent. So reducing the amount of wash we do can save water and help restore the environment. Why not do what the Gores do at home: wear clothes at least 4 times between washes (3 times for underwear and socks). Tipper thought of this neat reminder so you won't forget, "Wear four art thou, Romeo?"