Water treatment

Grey water reed beds

All of the wastewater from the house, except for the toilets, drains into a 150 litre holding-tank outside the house. It contains a submersible pump with a float switch that pumps the water to the reed bed.

General specifications for a vertical flow reed bed.

Design from Camphill Water

Bed area to be no less than 1 sq.m. per person on the system
Bed divided into at least two separate sections below the sand layer
A distribution area to change flow between sections
Change between sections at least every week or when on-line section is ponding
Phagmites australis/ communis planted into the sand layer at 4 per sq.m.
All stones must be clean
Sand should be well draining sharp washed sand

Our reed bed

Cleaned water from the reed bed goes into two ponds to be used for watering the garden. We plan to get a solar powered pump to aerate and recirculate the water to a 2m high reservoir so that garden watering can be done by gravity drip feed.

See the water page on reducing water use and rainwater harvesting.

What you can do

Reusing water

Think about using bath water for flushing loos.

Mark Moody gave us advice on reed bed design, composting loos, low-flush toilets, and other appropriate ways of dealing with water and waste. Contact Camphill Water CVT 01594 516063

We used fact sheets on composting loos and reed beds from CAT (Centre for Alternative technology) 01654 702400

by Pepik

See the 'What you can do' page for a compilation of tips and links from all sections.

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