Residential Architect: Is Graywater Harvesting Worth the Effort and Expense?

Mark Larson, AIA, looks forward to the day when a client gives the green light on greywater harvesting, a system that allows homeowners to capture and reuse wastewater. So far the co-principal of Minneapolis-based Rehkamp Larson Architects hasn’t had any takers. “Most clients are leery of it,” he says. “Plus, in the Midwest, water availability isn’t a crisis, so there’s no [sense of] urgency.”

Allison Ewing, AIA, LEED AP, feels Larson’s pain. Though Ewing’s firm, Charlottesville, Va.-based Hays + Ewing Design Studio, incorporates water conservation in all of its projects, it hasn’t yet found a client willing to do greywater collection. “We’ve tried to put greywater systems into multiple projects, but they’ve always been cut during the ‘value engineering’ phase,” she explains. Like Larson, Ewing attributes part of the reluctance to her location. Water supply issues aren’t as grave a concern on the East Coast as they are in other regions of the country. Still, increasing drought conditions in unexpected places are slowly changing perceptions, she says.

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