Greywater Systems

Greywater is nutrient rich water from bathroom sinks and showers, washing machine, and in some cases from your kitchen sink, that may be utilized to irrigate fruit and nut trees and other foliage in your landscape. The worst thing to do with greywater is to turn it into blackwater by trying to store it in a tank! The best thing to do with greywater is to get it as quickly as possible to the roots of shrubs and trees by delivering it in a mulched infiltration basin. 

Greywater is a valuable asset to your landscape because it offers a predictable regular water resource that may be utilized to sustain water-needy trees such as fruit and nut trees that may not otherwise survive the dry season. In the southwest, we have monsoon rains in the summer and winter rains, often with little or no rain in between. A carefully designed basin that receives predictable volumes of greywater can sustain non-native species trees, without the need for any additional irrigation.

If you are interested in implementing rainwater harvesting into your landscape, let us also take a look at your potential greywater resources to determine your overall water budget. Depending on whether you want to provide additional irrigation or have a hands-off "xeroscape" we'll help you choose plants, shrubs, and trees to suit your desires and match your water resources.

We offer installation of simple branched-drain and laundry-to-landscape greywater systems. Depending on your existing plumbing and topography, we will let you know what is feasible as part of our regular rainwater harvesting site assessment.