Mike Holmes - Holmes on Homes, a Canadian publication asserts it is time to start using grey water to flush our toilets!  DUH!   We, at Water legacy have been saying this for years.  The time has come for the regulatory agencies to start mandating the use of greywater to flush toilets. I n this article it states:            “Grey-water recycling is a technology we all need to adopt to help conserve water.”  We have the technology!  It exists and it works.  Our water bill last month for water alone was a  whopping $12.00.

View this article at http://www.holmesmagazine.com/moremike_waterways.php.

The WL55 from Water legacy saves an average household 30%-40% of its residential water consumption!  Now that is saving water

Let me know what you think.

The Colorado Sustainable Design Awards sets a high standard for new construction in both commercial and residential green building.  The most recent awards,  judged on standards set by the Colorado chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Urban Land Institute Colorado and the U.S. Green Building Council Colorado in partnership with ColoradoBiz magazine, gave the first and second place residential award to homes with the Water Legacy WL55 Greywater Recycling System.

This statewide program seeks to recognize the builders who construct both commercial and residential units that meet a set of established guidelines for saving energy and reducing your carbon footprint. Our greywater reuse system was cited prominently in both homes located in Boulder county as one of the leading edge clean technology advancements that set the winners apart.  “Case in point: The winning entry in the residential category – which required lobbying the city of Boulder to allow recycling of gray water – was commissioned by a homeowner who scoffed at the city’s new “green build” guidelines. The sustainable features he had in mind for his home, he told his architect, would trump anything the city required. And he was willing to spend a lot of money to include them.” ColoradoBIZ Magazine, November 2, 2009.

The WL55 was noted by the judges as one of the features in the homes that is marked for future expansion and usage in all building.  To see more about the awards and the winners visit ColoradoBiz Magazine at http://www.cobizmag.com/articles/csda-beyond-the-call-of-green/

Linked In, a professional social networking site is  having a discussion today that asks the question that we have been asking for years.  Why FLUSH FRESH WATER????

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestions=&gid=67451&forumID=3&sik=1255743268281

Water Legacy has spent the past two years working on developing a product that is easily installed in new residential construction.  The need for other applications of the design is becoming apparent as we have designed a unit for a dormitory at the University of Colorado (http://www.newsinfo.colostate.edu/index.asp?url=news_item_display&news_item_id=307579497)

Water legacy has also recently been featured on a YouTube video in conjunction with Service Master to explain the systems function and capability. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbschsK_tNk.  Help promote greywater re-use in your area and if you need expert advice on a system installation call Michael Vail at 303-587-9147 or email him at mvail@waterlegacy.com

The Keith County News of Ogallalla, Nebraska ran the article below in their June 24th, 2009 edition.

Nebraska Lake Home Incorporates Greywater Reuse       

By: Christine Kocak-Vail

After years of enjoying the beauty, quality of life and great friends at their mobile home at Lake McConoughay, Rob and Sue Stevens of Pine Bluffs, Wyoming decided to build their retirement home a golf cart ride away from their existing mobile home.  They selected a piece of property in the Lakeview subdivision and began building by erecting their Clary building last fall.  

The search for residential green building options led the family down a path of conservation on all levels.  Consideration of all of the top ten green building strategies were already on the list of essentials, but where else could innovative ideas be melded into the already accepted formatting of insulation, building size, indoor air quality, mechanical systems and resource conservation?

Rob knew he wanted a house that was energy efficient, and yet comfortable.  In his research he found that the Mastre Homes of Grant, Nebraska, would work with Rob and Sue in developing the needs of the energy and conservation they wanted in their lake residence.  Rob even decided he had to have something that conserved water because of the past few years of drought really made water a precious resource.  In Pine Bluffs the community is recommended to only flush their toilets 3 times a day to conserve water.

Rob did his research and selected an emerging, Colorado manufactured product by Water Legacy LLC, the WL55, to conserve greywater by recycling shower and washing machine water in his toilets.  Little did Rob know that his neighbor at the lake, Mike Vail, was the designer of the WL55 and owner of Water Legacy, L.L.C. 

The WL-55 has been designed to service the typical 4-to-6 person household. It is a stand-alone fully integrated system that collects used bathing greywater, filters & disinfects this water, and manages the automatic supply to the toilets. The WL-55 is fully automatic and requires no operator intervention. In the event of insufficient Greywater for flushing of toilets, the WL-55 will complement with Fresh Water.

The Water Legacy Residential Greywater Reclamation System (WL55) conserves potable water by recycling spent water, typically released to the dwellings sewer discharge.  The Water Legacy functions on the simple premise that greywater can be treated to a safe enough level for re-using a multi-barrier approach in non-potable applications mainly toilet flushing.  Residential users can save valuable potable water by flushing toilets with spent greywater that would otherwise be sent directly down the drain despite still having beneficial use potential.

The area of water conservation in residential home use has been typically addressed through usage of low flush toilets and low flow plumbing fixtures and efficient appliances.  But the thought of not flushing good water down the drain really had an impact on how he wanted to impart a message in his home.

Currently, Rob and Sue’s home is supporting a WL55 that was installed this spring and they hope to obtain a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification of Platinum on their home in Brule, NE.  “The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.” according the USGBC (Unites States Green Building Council) website.

The US government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages by 2012 because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess. Last year’s Atlanta crisis serves as a clear warning that even perceived “Wet” states are not immune to water shortages.

Today 30% of the fresh water consumption of the average American home is used to flush toilets. We can no longer afford to flush our toilets with drinking water.

Greywater recycling must be an integral part of our battle to conserve water without reducing our quality of life. Simply by recycling the used domestic bathing water to flush toilets you can reduce your domestic fresh water consumption by 30%.

For Immediate Release
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Contact for Reporters:
Emily Narvaes Wilmsen
(970) 491-2336
Emily.Wilmsen@colostate.edu

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS EXPLORE GRAYWATER IRRIGATION AS POTENTIAL WATER CONSERVATION TOOL
Media Box:
CSU graywater team
Associated images
CSU graywater team
Note to Editors: A photo of the CSU graywater team is available with the news release at http://www.newsinfo.colostate.edu/.

FORT COLLINS - Graywater - nonpotable water from showers, handwash sinks and laundry - is used for residential landscape irrigation in a number of states in the Southwest; however, little is known about long-term effects of this practice, according to Colorado State University civil engineers.

Sybil Sharvelle and Larry Roesner, professors with the Urban Water Center in Colorado State’s College of Engineering, are in the first year of a three-year $370,000 graywater study awarded by the Water Environment Research Foundation to investigate the effects of using household graywater for residential landscape irrigation. They are sampling soil, plants, and water at homes with graywater systems in California, Arizona, Texas and Colorado. Four of the homes have graywater systems that have been in place for more than five years, and four additional homes will have new systems installed before spring of 2009.

Three homes with systems in place for more than 5 years - in Colorado, California and Texas - have been tested to date.

The study is one of four projects that Roesner and Sharvelle are leading on campus. The team also is working with the CSU Department of Facilities Management on several projects involving campus facilities including:

-Construction and monitoring of a wetlands treatment system for graywater at the Atmospheric Chemistry building on the Foothills campus. Students planted bull rushes and cattails last summer that, so far, are removing nearly all of the pathogen indicator organisms in sink and shower water, Sharvelle said. Researchers are also hauling shower and laundry water from a university residence hall to the Foothills campus to increase the quantity of water treated.

-Installing an anaerobic digester at the Atmospheric Chemistry building to treat toilet water or “blackwater” and test it as a source of renewable energy. Anaerobic processes generate methane, which can generate electricity.

-Plumbing one wing of the new residence hall, under construction, for complete capture of graywater from sinks, showers and laundry water; in addition, water supply lines to toilets are being plumbed to use either domestic water, or non-potable water (irrigation water or conditioned graywater) for toilet flushing. Studies by Sharvelle and Roesner will determine what level of treatment of graywater is required to make it suitable for toilet flushing. They are working with Water Legacy, a Colorado manufacturer of graywater treatment systems.

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