17 years ago, as I became aware of the impact our lifestyles were having on our environment and coupled with a growing sceptism of big corporates, from municipalities to private sector conglomerates, I looked around for more opportunities to go off the grid.  We already had a solar hot water heating system installed in 1987 which is still going strong today! We were busy planning new bathrooms and looking at options for rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling. The search was difficult with most information originating out of California and it seemed that we would have to put together our own system working with very cynical local plumbers when we came across Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor at Water Rhapsody. Jeremy was an inspirational breath of fresh air, a non-materialistic idealist with a strong practical streak – seemingly out of step with our peers’ conspicuous consumption lifestyles but light years ahead of them in terms of what we needed to do to ensure there would still be a planet for our grandchildren. Jeremy had devised a series of water saving devices using strong robust catalogue components that could be clipped onto standard plumbing systems. As I am interested in simple and elegant design of buildings and architecture, hate the need for regular home maintenance, and being a great disciple of the “set and forget” philisophy, I scrutinised Jeremy’s systems very carefully. My wife was also an important test in that she thought that all of these ideas were a bit cranky and didn’t want to have anything to do with inventions that would cause smells, regular maintenance or lifestyle adaptations. The pool was bad enough! There didn’t seem to be any clever tricks designed to hook one into ongoing maintenance contracts and supply of overpriced essential bespoke maintenance items or patented parts only available from Jeremy – as I had found to great cost with a swimming pool filter system we had installed from another contractor. We made sure that the plumbers fitted the necessary dual plumbing systems in the new bathrooms and retrofitted them in the existing amd installed the grey water recycling system. We are happy to report that we have never used municipal water on the bottom lawn again. As you will gather we are not very good on regular maintenance but the system, whose filters do need cleaning from time to time, – usually takes 5 minutes at the end of winter – has operated successfully ever since. As you can imagine with our erratic approach to home maintenance the filters do eventually block up with lint etc. At this point the overflow to the sewer kicks in and we never suffer any problems other noticing the garden sprinkler doesn’t come on. We then clean the filters and off it goes. The cleaning is also simple and the parts robust enough to enable unskilled staff to do it. We still get a great sense of satisfaction after showering or letting the bath water out to go and watch the sprinkler working. Our staff think the system is magic. We have enthusiastically endorsed the product to friends and family over the past 15 years and have not heard a single complaint. There are now the very attractive Water Rhapsody signs in every street in our neighbourhood. My wife’s sister has had a double system installed in the front and back of her house. Her husband is a perfectionist engineer with the council who watches the pennies very carefully but they, too, have been very happy with their system.

Simon Nicks
Environmenal Planner and Urban Designer
Fynbos Conservation Award winner 2009
Johnny Walker Celebrating Strides nominee 2010

When you start a business, a brand or a project, there’s a lot of work to be done. You must tell a story, build credibility and a permission asset. People don’t trust you or believe you and you must earn their attention and trust. On top of that, you need skills, systems, machines and a team that works.

Quite an investment.

The goal is to reach the point where there’s some harvesting going on. The first sales might cost you a hundred or thousand dollars each to make. At some point, though, you want sales to happen for free, people to show up with money. At some point, you want word of mouth to replace promotion and to earn back the money you invested up front.

That’s why it’s astonishing to me that people develop projects where harvesting is difficult or impossible. Here are some of the elements of a market where you are likely to reach the point where you can harvest the benefits of your investment:

• Word spreads. You want a market where stories of your success and reputation will reach other prospects.
• Needs are similar. You want a market where the skills you developed to help one person can also be used to help another person.
• Budgets exist. You want a market where there is more than one player with money to spend (on you) to solve a problem.
• Barriers exist. The market should reward insiders (like you) but make it really difficult for copycats to come in and steal share and lower prices.
• Price should rise with value delivered. As your work spreads and your reputation increases, you should be able to charge more, not less.

Rainwater harvesting and Grey water recycling according to Gulfnews, is the clean information flow that needs to be fed to our younger generations as more grey water goes down the drain.

By Mohammad Jihad, Community Web Editor

Genevieve Jozaffe-Naidoo, a South African senior Human Resource consultant, grew up in a culture that conserves water. She said: “15 years ago South Africa underwent a serious water drought that started a series of government campaigns to educate people on how to save water.” Schools also participated in these campaigns and it proved very successful. Jozaffe-Naidoo, a Dubai resident, put campaign stickers over her taps to remind herself to save water when it is not used. She said: “It has become such a way of life for me that my Dewa bill never exceeds Dh200.”

Jozaffe-Naidoo believes that awareness on water conservation in the UAE needs to start from the ground level. According to Jozaffe-Naidoo, the best way to inform the community is to educate children so they could spread the word and make it a habit and a routine in the future. Mahmoud Qazi, a Pakistani operation manager, is also very conscious when it comes to producing grey water. He said: “I try as much as I can to turn the taps off whenever I am brushing my teeth or taking a shower.”Qazi, a Sharjah resident, makes it a habit for his family to turn off any running tap when it is not in use for even a short while – such as when washing dishes. Qazi thinks it is a big waste when people take baths, as it consumes a lot of water to fill the bath tub, which would then be drained shortly after.

According to Qazi, the most important thing is raising awareness about the issue, the younger the audience, the better. “People need to be aware, they might not leave the tap running intentionally, but it will still waste water and money.” Ayaz Khurshid, a Bangladeshi national residing in Dubai, also believes that awareness is the key to helping the environment. He said: “Everyone, especially children, need to be educated about the importance of water. If they are informed, they would think twice and remember to turn off the tap. It is a matter of routine.”

Khurshid, a student, was not concerned about grey water until he started reading about it. He said: “I never bothered until I read signs on the street informing people to save the precious water we have.” Khurshid makes sure that all taps are closed whenever they are not in use. If there is any water leak in the house Khurshid fixes it before it wastes too much water. Khurshid said: “I try to be aware of what is happening around me. “

By J.B. Smith Tribune-Herald staff writer

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Working at the Earle-Harrison House on North Fifth Street, Greg and Kathy Riggs got used to curious conjectures about the house under construction next door, with its steep metal roof and stainless-steel silo out front.

Some imagined it was a new barn to serve the antebellum house museum. One asked if it was that new whiskey distillery that’s been in the news.

“Somebody from the Census came by today and said, ‘What’s that next door? It’s such a weird house. I don’t know where the front door is,’ ” said Kathy Riggs, who manages the Earle-Harrison House.

Greg Riggs stands in front of his new home on North Fifth Street, which is served water by a stainless-steel cistern, among other green technologies. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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Greg Riggs’ home is outfitted with a special soy-based foam insulation. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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The Riggses’ rainwater-collection cistern is part of a system that could collect up to 32,000 gallons of water a year for the house. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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Here at last is the mystery solved: The house was designed and built by the Riggses as their “green” dream home. Water from the roof drains into a 10,000-gallon, vinyl-lined silo and is filtered through reverse osmosis and used for their inside needs. They plan to build a second cistern around back to collect water from the other side of the roof, using it to irrigate future landscaping.

As far as they or anyone from the city of Waco knows, it’s the first full-scale residential rainwater-harvesting system built in recent times. They plan to start using the tank this week, assuming the predicted weekend rains top it off. Their goal is to retain and use every drop that falls on their half-acre property and to zero out their city water use.

“We wanted to have the lowest impact we could have on the environment without spending tons of money,” said Greg Riggs, 60, a potter and retired state worker who works as a gardener at the Earle-Harrison House.

“It’s sort of a demonstration project. It’s also something that morally we wanted to do.”

Kathy Riggs said it seems hard to believe that enough rain falls on a house in Central Texas to meet a household’s needs. But as they calculate it, each inch of rainfall yields them 1,000 gallons. Waco gets an average rainfall of 32 inches, which adds up to 32,000 gallons a year or nearly 2,700 gallons per month. The Riggses use about 1,900 gallons a month inside and plan to use a separate system outside, where they will plant drought-tolerant plants.

“It is possible,” Kathy Riggs said. “It’s completely surprising to me. We’ve had four major rains this year, and we’ve got 9,000 gallons off just one small portion of our roof.”

The benefits of rainwater harvesting go beyond the savings on the household water bill. Home rainwater harvesting lessens the need to build new reservoirs in the middle Brazos basin, which is facing water shortfalls in the next 50 years. It also reduces the demand on city water-treatment plants in the summer months and helps reduce urban flooding.

The Riggses say taste is another reason to choose rainwater. The water is naturally “soft,” free of minerals such as calcium, and Kathy Riggs said it tastes “sweet.”

Practice goes way back

Rainwater harvesting is as old as civilization, and many Texas homes had cisterns before the advent of cheap, reliable public water supplies. But the practice is making a comeback, especially in areas of high growth and limited water, such as Austin, San Antonio and parts of California.

In Waco, World Hunger Relief Inc., Homestead Heritage and the new Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce building have rainwater-catchment systems.

But the Riggses’ system was the first residential above-ground cistern city planners and inspectors had ever encountered, and it prompted the Waco City Council in December to pass a zoning ordinance regulating such structures.

“We wanted to make it easier to do,” said Bill Falco, planning director. “That’s a green technology, and it’s not something we want to discourage. But we wanted to do something to control location and height so it would blend with other houses.”

The new ordinance requires the cistern to be tucked away in the side or back of the house, though Falco said that standard would not have applied to the Riggses’ house because it is set back from the street.

Part of the home

The Riggses, who designed the home, saw the cistern as an architectural feature of their house.

“We wanted it to look like a silo,” Greg Riggs said.

The Riggses concealed the gutters with some deft brickwork. At city inspectors’ urging, they also paid $1,200 for an engineered concrete foundation of 6 inches, with 30-inch footings — more strength than is required for cisterns over the San Andreas fault in California, Greg Riggs said.

The silo cost $16,000, and the piping, pumping, filtration and ultraviolet disinfecting system cost a couple of thousand more, the Riggses said.

But they said the high price tag shouldn’t scare people off. A simple fiberglass tank of the same size would cost only about $2,500, and the filtration system wouldn’t be needed for yard watering. And the Riggses were able to get a tax credit for installing green technology.

The Riggses also spent extra money to superinsulate their home with soy-based foam and add a heat pump and programmable thermostat. So far, their highest energy bill this year has been $130 for a 3,000-square-foot home. They recycle, compost and buy “renewable” electricity. And Greg said in coming years they hope to add solar panels, with an eye to “getting off the grid.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. During the back-to-the-land movement of the early 1970s, the Riggses lived in Montana, making pottery and living in a house with no electricity. They lit their cabin with kerosene lamps and heated it with cordwood even as temperatures dropped below minus 40 degrees.

They moved to Houston and then to Waco in the mid-1990s. They bought and renovated an old Craftsman bungalow on Colcord Avenue and started neighborhood programs such as the Sanger-Heights community garden and a children’s pottery workshop.

Now the Riggses are hoping to bring their eco-conscious ideas to the Earle-Harrison House, which is governed by the Pape Foundation. The home sits on six acres of lush gardens, which can cost more than $1,000 a month to keep watered.

“We’re in the process of a strategic plan, and there’s great interest in collecting rainwater,” Kathy Riggs said. “We’re trying to go green in as many ways as possible. It’s really exciting to think how we can save money on water. We have to change with the times.”