I came up with a science fair project where I used laundry water to water our garden. I used window screen wire to filter the lint and let the water sit in the sun for 4 days before using to let the chlorine bleach dissapate. The phosphates in the water from the detergent seems to have acted as a form of fertilizer. I used a bucket to water the garden which damaged some of my plants. Worsted of all... it took forever!!!! I would like to find a way to pump the water out of the barrels so I can use a soaker hose to water with. I have to build this pump myself or at least use an inexpensive kind of pump. I live in a farming community in Southwest Missouri. I thougt of this idea 2 years ago when one of the large farmers lowered the water level in our town well due to pumping so much water for irrigation. I might be able to get some more people interested in using this system if I cam come up with an easier, inexpensive way of getting the water from barrels to the garden. My grandmother says I'm nuts if I think she is going to carry buckets of water at her age. She had enough of that when she was a kid.

-- Adam Wood (rn_cheryl@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002

Answers

Put a water pump on it. A well pump will work, a lower cost pump might be a sump pump, irrigation pumps will work.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), February 20, 2002.

You can try siphoning if the area needed watering is lower than the barrel, or even a place like Lowes carry small fountain pumps that will work.

-- Dave in Ohio (Dr43147@yahoo.com), February 20, 2002.

Think about further screening - stocking or panty-hose fabric is used a lot, and if you used it as a second stage after your screen wire then any pumps and fine fittings would probably do a lot better. A lot of lint and fluff is fine enough to get through ordinary screen- mesh. This would block up soaker hose, and would be absolutely terrible for those little drip-irrigation fittings.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 20, 2002.

I don't know how to make a pump, but you could put a valve at the bottom of the barrel, put the barrel on a wagon and pull it to the garden with a, attach your soaker hose, open the valve and go feed the chickens or milk the goat. Depends on the amount of water you have, you may need a larger heavy duty wagon and something to pull it. Good luck, Stoney

-- stoney (rwrong@yahoo.com), February 20, 2002.

A cheap way is a belge pump from a boat there about20 bucks at was mart u need a 12volt battry though a sump pump is about 50 bucks at home depot! there 110volt

-- Grizz in Western Maryland (southerneagle@yahoo.com), February 20, 2002.

My first choice would be a small submersible pump designed for constant use such as a fountain pump or little bigger(around $20). Think regular sump pump used to keep basement dry would be little large and pump a little fast. If absolute bargain price is concern, then look to salvage a pump off an old automatic washing machine. They have a pump to drain dirty water after wash and rinse cycles. Look for one with pulley on it. Then find a small electric motor to power it. Again you could salvage it off some old appliance. Oh, there are little $10 pumps available that you power with an electric drill. Know lowes and other simular places sell them. You may have to look though. They dont necessarily last long time, but would work for your demonstration.

-- HermitJohn (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), February 20, 2002.

If you had a barrel on a stand (where is was about a foot higherthan the ground)and hooked up a focet to the bottom couldn't you just hook your soaker hose to it and let gravitiy do the rest?

-- Teresa (c3ranch@socket.net), February 20, 2002.

We have six plastic rain barrels that my husband fitted at the bottom with a faucet like you use outside. The barrels are raised about three feet on cement blocks. I just hook a hose to the barrels and run the hose out to the garden. If the soaker hose gets clogged, my husband uses the air hose and blows the hose out. I think your project is a great one. Wish more youngsters would get involved in saving our natural resources.

-- Grannytoo (jacres40@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

We pump water from our pond to water our garden in the summer. Hubby built a filter using I think a 5 gallon pail, put holes in it, filled it with hen grit, and then put the normal intake end into this pail of hen grit. It filters wonderfully. Check your library for books showing how to build natural filters in ponds and watergardens. I, too, would worry about the fine lint plugging your drip hose.

I like the idea of the barrel with the 'tap' or valve on the bottom where you can attach your hose. I'm not too clear on your current set up, but I would think if you had barrels near the house where you accumulate and 'age' your wash water, and one 'mobile' barrel that you could siphon into, then transport this mobile barrel to the garden. This mobile barrel would definitely be one with the 'tap' on the bottom. I would think that the higher you could keep this barrel, the more force you could have putting the water out.

Actually, with regard to filtering, I would think that if you put hen grit in the bottom of this barrel up to above the tap, this would also help filter.

Sounds like an interesting project. You have a some other excellent suggestions in the posts above, so you should be able to figure something out that will work. I'd be interested to know the end result.

-- Bernie from Northern Ontario (bernadette_kerr@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

Simple. Go to Wally World and buy a Rule 360 marine pump (about $20), then borrow a battery from your dad and use it for about 10-min/day to transfer the water. Phosphates? They've been illegal for use in detergents for a decade or more. Better check that box for contents. Placing a barrel on top of cement blocks and then running the laundry water into it makes more sense and it's cheaper too.

-- al (yr2012@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

I have been thinking about this alot lately myself--wondering how to make laundry soap that would be organic to the vegetables.

Perhaps you could help things by diluting with rain water that comes from your gutters.

As someone suggested, you could prop the barrel up on blocks, and use gravity to send via drip hoses to the place you want it.

Check out Lee valley for inexpensive spigots that you can put at the bottom of your barrel for 8$ or a hand pump on the top for $28.

Tell your mom that bucket carrying not only builds character it will give her the much needed weight lifting that women can use to offset osteoporosis:) All of this said with love, of course....

Good luck.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

You've got a good idea. Anytime you can use something twice that most people only use once your doing OK. As far as carting water to the garden goes, keep in mind that water weighs something like 8.2 lbs. per gallon. If you move only 25 gallons your hauling over 200 lbs. of water plus the weight of the barrel and the cart. That does not sound like labor saving to me. Besides, 25 gallons even with drip irrigation is not going to water a whole lot of garden. A pump would do a good job for moving larger quantities of water but there are a few things to keep in mind. If your garden is located down hill from your water barrels there's not much problem. You only have to raise the water to just over the top of the barrel and let gravity do the rest. If its up hill then you have to keep in mind that the pump has to do all the work. Also keep in mind the distance from the water barrels to the garden. That will further reduce the pumps efficiency. Other factors that come into play is the size of the discharge outlet on the pump and the diameter of the hose going to the garden. You should also consider the cost of the pump plus the cost of the electricity to run it versus the cost of the water itself. A pump does have a life expectancy of so many operational hours before it has to be replaced. I don't want to sound like a doom sayer but I build ponds and waterfalls for people and these are all things that come into play.The application is different but goal is the same, moving water. The best advice you got involves using gravity. if you can build a stand to hold your barrels so that the bottom of the barrels are at least a couple of feet higher than the point of discharge things should work great. The barrels could even be hooked up in tandem using PVC pipe so that you only need one faucet and can drain all the barrels. Shut off valves between the barrels would allow you to control how much water is used. Like I said you have a good idea. By the way you also may want to find out how much water pressure is needed for a soaker hose to work efficiently. Our drip irrigation system requires a minimum of 5 gal./ min. Good luck.

-- JJ Grandits (JJG@aol.com), February 20, 2002.

Might get some ideas from this link: Grey Water & the Garden, http://www.earthlife.org.za/ghouse/gfiles/water/graywater/grey-1.htm

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), February 20, 2002.

You can build a pump by using spools (thread) probably about 3. Mounted onto a piece of round 3/4 inch plywood. Attach the 3 spools in an equal laderal triangle. Over the spools you can run some real flexible hose pulling it real tight and securing the ends on a stationary part. The object is to keep this hose tight so when you rotate the spools it traps the water in the short pieces of plastic pipe. The plastic pipe is stationary. As the part with the spools turn, it will pump water. Now the problem is to make the spool section to where you can attach a hand crank for hand pumping; or a shaft for a motor operation...ie..you could use a drill motor to run this make believe pump. (experiment with power requirements depending on how large you build the plastic part of this contraption.)

The part that is stationary will be the plastic pipe and the frame for the rotating spool housing..I know this is hard to picture, but I know it will work.

And it is all made by you...except the drive if you go to a motor..if you use a crank, presto it's all manual person made.

In a nutshell: Imagine a stationary section which will hold the axle for the wheel to rotate on. The wheel (3/4"plywood) has 3 or 4 thread spools on it. You run a very flexible hose over the spools and pull it very tight and secure it to the stationary section mentioned above. Put fittings on the ends of the plastic and attach a hose to go where you want to water. The drive for the rotating wheel can be a crank made out of wood or pipe, or a motor. Be careful using a motor as all of this will be exposed and you don't want to get youself, friends, animals or others caught in a moving machine....

I hope you can make this out...Good Luck on your project! I used to work with 4H and FFA students as a volunteer...I'm not a teacher.

-- milam (milamgerick@juno.com), February 20, 2002.

Another suggestion if you do not need to have a pump: Is it possible to have the washer pump push the water up say 10 ft (to an elevated barrell) and once the water is in the barrel, use gravity to do the watering. I am not sure how much elevation you can get out of the washing machine pump; but,it should lift it 10 ft without a problem. This is something you might check out with the washing machine people prior to trying it...so you don't get into trouble there.....

The other post above will work if you need a pump!

-- milam (milamgerick@juno.com), February 20, 2002.

Milam: Using twenty feet of rigid pipe Sch 40 connected to the discharge hose, will get you over and up to the barrels on cement/cinder blocks.

-- al (yr2012@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

How about aquarium pumps?

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.

Adam, check the ingredients on your laundry product. If it contains sodium carbamate, it's not a good idea to use on your plants. I tried this when we were in a drought and were on a public water system. It damaged a lot of my garden while other parts were okay. At the least, call the manufacturer and ask about using the water. Most of them will tell you it isn't recommended but can't or won't tell you why.

How about catching rainwater from gutters and downspouts from your house and outbuildings? I have mine set up on pallets then gravity feed to the garden with hoses.

-- susie (nospam@noplace.net), February 20, 2002.

Adam, I have built the system you describe in your thread. I used PVC to channel the water from the washer discharge hose into a series of 33 gal plastic trash cans from Home Depot. The two trash cans were connected at the bottom (about 1 inch above the very bottom) with half inch PVC. The barrels were set upon a 12 inch platform outside the garage. I needed two barrels because a single load of wash used about 45 gal of water so one barrel was not enough. I put a faucet on the bottom of one barrel and hooked a garden hose to it. I just let the water drain by gravity on the lawn. But a word of caution: water from the washer is considered gray water, but it is septic. If left in the barrel for 3 days, the bacteria level will rise and it will get thick and smell just like the sludge in the septic tank. So don't age the water. Drain it as soon as you collect it. If the chlorine affects your plants adversely, drain it elsewhere. I do not recommend using it on food crops in any case. Good luck, and keep thinking green!!

-- Dwight (summit1762@aol.com), February 20, 2002.