Plumbing appliances
From HUG Wiki
Most appliances are movable. They plug in. Most plumbing fixtures are the exact opposite. You have to nearly tear the building apart to move a piece of plumbing. That is why they are called fixtures.
I am imagining plumbing appliances. They plug in to small flexible pipes and wires. They may have their own cache of water that they filter and recycle. They reduce water needs by a factor of ten while giving the user a feel of luxuriant abundance. Their portability makes remodeling easy and flexible.
If a building was designed with lots of troughs and conduits to run pipes and wires through, it would be easy to unplug your sink, shower or toilet, move the pipes to another location and plug back in.
Contents |
Kitchen Sink
Holds a few gallons of water. Has built-in water pump and filter. Preferably 3 basins.
Clean hot water is used in the final rinse basin.
Used rinse water gets a little soap added and a pump sends it to the middle basin.
Used soapy water goes to the pre-wash basin where a pump constantly recycles the water through a self cleaning filter. Before this water has a chance to rot, it is washed out to the gray water handler.
Shower
Shower starts with fresh water. That water gets reheated, filtered and sent back to the shower head. You can use the same few gallons while you luxuriate in the shower for an hour if you want to. Final rinse is with fresh water again. Internal tank and filter automatically clean themselves.
Toilet
Two possible kinds; Composter and Water based.
Water based would use a small amount of water to thin and rinse the contents. A tiny grinder pump would stuff the contents into a 1/2 inch pipe. This version could potentially be very light weight and easy to re-locate.
Composter would likely be connected to a composting area below it or behind a wall. This one is not as relocatable. Rather than try to appear sanitary like a porcelain flush toilet, the toilet bowl will be black polyethylene and make use of dirt to keep healthy. An auger will dump black high carbon compost bulking material so that it slides down the sides of the bowl. The compost will act as a probiotic that cleans up odors and pathogens by predation. This may actually be more healthy than toilet flushes. A flush throws lots of contaminated water droplets into the air. This design wouldn't.
Central heat cascade appliance
This is early conceptual. It would provide these functions:
- Cook
- Sterilize sewage before composting
- Sterilize water before washing or showering with it
- Distill water
- Heat water
- Space heat
It's fuel source might be electric, biomass, waste oil, solar concentrator. Needs work to pick one or two.
Grey water processing system
With the tiny amount of water that drains from our shower and sink appliances, it is totally practical to have no effluent leaving even a small cabin (as long as a greenhouse is attached).
- Water from sink and shower first flows through an optional pasteurizer then into the plant loop.
- Water flows continuously through a loop of plants in the greenhouse.
- Some water is tapped from the loop and run into a sand filter followed by a charcoal filter.
- The clarified water is heated and ready for use in the shower and sink.
- The water heater and pasteurizer are two separate loops in the same tank.
- Perhaps located in the shower appliance.
- Perhaps in the heat cascade appliance
- When it needs to be replaced, the old charcoal can be regenerated on campus.
BioMass Grinder
While not exactly plumbing, this is an appliance that would help make a number of things more possible...
- Composting and compost toilets
- Cooking and water heating
- Power for central heat cascade appliance
Its job is to take biomass from the local greenhouse and gardens and grind it into pieces about 1/4 inch long. It is small enough to be used economically in a single household. It must be robust and nearly trouble free. As of 01/24/07, Bruce Tollerud will be exploring the feasibility of creating a suitable product for his new startup business.
