Quoted: What started my line of thought was dishwashing in particular.  Between 2 kids and 2 adults we make a lot of bathing water too.   Was thinking about the leach field too.  I am glad that someone else said that.   but is it safe?

One way to think of it is you either ate from it or had your body in it, otherwise it isn't gray water but waste water.

Most people simply bury a perforated 55 gallon drum, plastic is best, in a hole wide enough to have a rock bed around it then pipe it into the barrel or barrels depending on how much you have compared to leach rate.

There's actually some neat modular systems on the net the same concept where you can order the tanks and they have access, can be stacked, or staggered etc.

Still other folks simply back drain it down like a reverse shallow French drain, typically if have a hill.

Surface dumping stinks, literally.  

Tj

Quoted: Quoted: Surface dumping stinks, literally.   Does it?  I wouldn't have thought grey water would smell except like Dawn, Tide and Dial.  There's enough gunk in it to stink?

Oh yeah, stinks bad.  Keep in mind soaps and detergents are water soluable which will soak into the soil fast with a rain.  Anything that isn't, suspended solids, will decay and smell to high heaven.  That includes food scraps, dirt from your clothes, and even from your body.  Of course, bleach smells bad too.

Now to show my age, way back when before my familly had running water in the house, disposal of gray water was an everyday thing.  It wasn't like the movies where the poor farmer simply threw the water off the front porch or some Roman/Middleages movie into the streets.  We had a spot just for gray water due to the smell.  

Now to really get into it, kitchen scraps were made into slop which was fed to the hogs but anything with detergent in it had to be dumped separately.  It would give the farm animals the runs.  They crap enough as it is.  Bath water, wash pan water, mop water, and dishwater were gray water for non-animal consumption.  About the only water ever just dumped off the porch was the drinking water bucket which you threw away what was left before you refilled.  This was often since fresh well water was very cool and there was no AC in those days.  The closest thing we had to a refridgerator was a ice cooler, big thing that used block ice, and root cellar.  

There was very little waste on a self sufficient farm.  All waste was divided into catagories.  The worst of course was human waste which other than the occasional pee behind a tree or the barn always went into the outhouse.  Slop jar duty wasn't good.  These jars were kept in the house for the middle of the cold winter night need to use the bathroom.  Next was the gray water with soap or detergent in it which was dumped right after use and typically from either a wash tub or wash basin.  On a larger farm, you had wash houses.  These were nice since they had a gray water floor drain.  Typically located away from the house due to the smells, they were also the place to dispose of house gray water.  If you didn't have a wash house, you simply had a spot to pour the gray water, away from the main house.  

Solids were divided into what can be burned and what can't.  What couldn't was collected and sold at the scrap metal place when enough was collected.  This was usually considered found money so used for extravagances, kids toys, a new dress for mom, etc.  Manure or barn waste was a prized waste and used for fertilizer in the fields or gardens.  Man I hated manure spreeding time, everything in every direction stunk of cow dung.

When I was very little, I lived in a very rual area.  About the only thing electricity was used for was electric lights and a radio.  My parents were pre-electricty.  Refridgerators were around when I was a boy but most the rural folk, folk from the 30s, were still use to not having them so even saw that as an extravagance.  Ice houses were a big thing.  Block ice was cheap and the ice houses were also usually beer stores in wet counties.  Sometimes in dry ones illegally.  Other than the weekly trip to town, the ice house was about the only getting away from the farm.  I was very dissappointed when we got our first electric fridge.  It cut out the mid-week icehouse trip.  Later a TV station was put in and we bought an old Philco round tube.  I can still remember my dad beating that damn ting to make it come in.  One channel became three and life changed as the TV told the people how they should live.

Though many may find that rough, I often long for those simple days.  It was a time when a neighbor meant something and familly wasn't two fathers and two mothers.  

Tj

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: any water that does not contain human excrimant will be fine for watering plants and even garden. I would also include food products (table scraps and food-laden dishwater) in the "unsafe" category. Undigested food is only slightly less nasty than the digested variety (particularly after decomposition starts to set in). uh, so what happens to wild plants that rot and "fertalize" the same plant? or that neato cow shit you put in the garden? food waste is not the same as "human" waste. it won't hurt you. more of the "sterilization" mindset of americans.

Of course it doesn't hurt you and its good for plants.  It simply stinks.  Tomato and egg scraps smell like crazy.  They smell far worse than cow dung.  You fertilize your roses with kitchen waste and it'll smell like hog slop.  Manure smells far less offensive.  


Tj

Quoted: can't argue with that. I guess it depends on if your growing for pleasure, (flowers) and garden for enjoyment, or survival because tomatoes and corn are not available in the store at any price.

Just don't want any surprises.  The question was homestead not EOTWAWKI.

When I was young, my familly never bought an ear of corn or tomato but we never ran gray water out on the suface of our yard or used it in the garden.  In todays PC world, I can think of only one thing, human sewage, that would draw EPA attention faster than gray water smell.  

In many ways its almost a "Whoops surprise!" as the smell builds up over time.  It gets worse and worse as time goes by especially in summer.  It permiates the topsoil if surface dumped.  I wouldn't be surprised in todays world the EPA made you dispose of of the dirt as hazardous waste.  (Kind of ironic really when you consider chicken shit smell is on the approved list in most rural areas.)

This is why today most folks use a gray water tank and leach bed or in a pinch a garden hose away from the house on a rainy day (Typically just clothes wash water).

Tj

Quoted: Consider this a Tag. The previous owner of our house plumbed the greywater (sinks, dish and clothes washers only) to a sump crock, and that pumps out to a puddle on the side of the house. We were thinking of re-plumbing everything back into the septic system, but it seems wasteful if we can get some irrigation use from it.

Honestly putting gray water into a septic can create all kinds of problems too.  That's how my house is done now and like Winston Wolf posted we have be careful what we dump into our spetic.  Bleach for example is a no no here.  You kill the bacteria in the holding tank and you start getting suspended solids in your leach bed which can clog it up.  Over the years we have found all kinds of products that cause us problems from dishwasher detergent choices to what shaving cream I use.

Just as a guess, I'd say the previous owner had spetic problems at one time or another and that was his solution.

A great product btw is Roebic which is an engineered bacteria for rejuevenating clogged leach beds.  It for some reason is not available in FL.

If I had your setup, that's 90% of the battle right there.  I'd honestly consider a separate holding tank and leach bed.  It elminates the smell, health concerns, and you can still  use the water for irrigation and fertilization.

Like I posted earlier, most folks simply use a plastic 55 gallon drum attached to the corrugated hose ran as a leach bed all buried.  Depending on your soil type, you may want to run the leach lines like a French drain with rock on top of the pipe and then soil on top of that.  The purpose of the barrel is to allow suspended solids to settle so the leach lines don't clog and bacteria to eat up those same suspended solids over time.

Now if you really don't have alot of water which sounds like you may not if its simply going to the side of the house.  Another method is just a peferated barrel surrounded by rock.

On a septic system, I wish I had a separate gray water system.  

Tj