Yesterday we got the good news that the City of ABQ issued a permit for our grey water plan. This may not sound like a big deal, but evidently, our permit is only the 2nd one ever issued for new construction in ABQ! We (along with our architect!) were a bit stunned to hear this, as we figured many people are incorporating grey water re-use into their new homes. Kudos to architect Leslie for getting this through on our behalf!
Perhaps the reason there are so few permits issued is because there are some issues around using grey water that not everyone is happy about. Number one is that you can't put it in a holding tank like rain water catchment. The health dept won't allow that because, well, grey water contains a fair amount of organic materials and can grow bacteria and such if left to stand for a time. So instead, you have to run it out to gardens or some other yard use directly from the house. Another issue with grey water is that you have to use bio-degradable soaps. Since we do mostly anyway, this is not a big adjustment for us. But for some folks, this would seriously cramp their style.
Our plan includes having two of our three showers (both upstairs) and the clothes washing machine to have a toggle switch that allows us to either send our grey water to our landscaped gardens or to the sewer. (for example, if we need to bleach some clothes some time, we don't want that grey water going in to our gardens). We think this plan will work well for us and are very pleased that the City of ABQ thinks so too!
Other construction developments...the systems are all getting finished up. that includes electrical, plumbing and HVAC. Once these are done, then the insulation starts. Next the roof is placed followed by stucco on the outside.
Next Friday (Sep 23), Karin and I are flying to PHX to go to IKEA and get our kitchen cabinets. We have rented a U-Haul truck and will drive them home. Then Karin will assemble them in the garage to be installed by our contractors. Using IKEA (which we actually really like a lot!) fits well for our project. They are green (no off-gassing), look nice, are sturdy and very functional, and will save us about $40-50K over custom cabinets. Don't get me wrong...we loved the custom cabinets we had in our house in Champaign. But we'd prefer to use this savings to purchase photo-voltaic panels and solar hot water systems for this house. :) We are very thankful to Kaye Marshall, our contractor, for being so accommodating regarding the cabinets. Karin's assembly of the IKEA cabinets (they come in many, many boxes) is part of the "sweat equity" that we (that would be the ROYAL "we") are putting into the house. :) Yay, Karin Lynn! I will be sure to put photos of the cabinet assembly process on the blog. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment