Work on the corridor has been on hold for a while. We’ve had a slight problem with our grey water system. Not the reedbed; that’s working fine. The thing is, the ground around the house is fairly flat, so there is not really sufficient slope for the grey water drainage. We’ve noticed that since the installation of the shower, the grey water from the kitchen sink tends to bubble up through the shower drain. This is because the water does not filter into the reedbed quickly enough, and the wastewater pipes fill up. The system therefore needs to be modified.
We had been looking for a reasonably-priced large plastic container for a while, and on T&M’s recommendation, last week we visited a lawnmower shop in Orleans. This turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of gardening stuff. Not only did they have a stock of plastic containers (we purchased two of the largest 120-litre models), but they also stock – wait for it – bee-keeping supplies! For a future project, of course.
Where was I? Oh yes, plastic containers. One of these will be buried in the ground near the reedbed, and act as a sump. All the household grey water will drain into this, and because of the installation of this sump, water will no longer back up and be able to bubble up through the shower drain.
However, this creates a new problem. The sump will be much lower than the reedbed, so to get the water up into the reedbed will involve the use of a pump. We didn’t really want to rely on electricity for this (and there’s also the running costs) so I purchased a marine bilge pump with automatic float switch fairly cheaply from Ebay, and as it’s 12 volts, it will run off its own little photovoltaic panel via a regulator and a car battery. The automatic float switch means that the pump will operate as soon as any water gathers in the sump; this should prevent quantities of grey water stagnating.
I’m currently in the process of connecting all of these items together. Of course it also needs to be fairly well insulated, as winters here can get very cold indeed. I’m keeping my eyes open for a discarded non-operational refrigerator; I can simply cut a hole in the back and use the resultant insulated “box” as a cover for the sump; the small photovoltaic panel can be mounted on the “lid”.
As an update on the “plum wine”: after several hours of cooking, we have one-and-a-half litres of clear liquid. It smells very nice, and there is a faint taste of plums, but it’s rather watery and not very strong. I think it ideally needs a second “cooking” operation, but the game would not be worth the candle due to the quantities involved.
It would be nice to repeat the process with a large plastic bucket full of apples (this is why we bought two plastic containers from the lawnmower shop!) but the apple crop this year is dismal. Maybe next year. Actually the aged FIL has the legal right to produce fruit alcohol, so the above process was obviously carried out on his behalf. Unfortunately this right is not hereditary.