Water and Power

Greywater Action Installer Course

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Events, Water and Power, Water Conservation

GW-alternate-laneyL2L

How about turning our historic drought into a job opportunity? That’s what you could do if you sign up for Greywater Action’s six day installer course coming up in November:

This course is designed for people with either basic plumbing, landscaping, or permaculture skills who want to learn how to design and build simple, economical residential greywater systems.

You will learn about the theory behind simple and high-end systems including the indoor use of greywater. We’ll cover basic plumbing and landscaping skills needed for the four types of common simple greywater systems. You will learn how to conduct a site assessment, determine which system to install and how to maintain existing systems. Additionally you’ll learn about what plants do best with greywater and the do’s and don’t of residential greywater reuse. By the end of the course you will know about proper installation of code compliant washing machine, and simple systems under the CA state code.

For more information and to sign up head here.

The best dry toilet ever

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Composting, Design, Humanure, Water Conservation
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Version 2

We are fortunate to have talented friends all around us, because they are a never-ending source of inspiration.

Case in point: Our friend, Gloria, needed a toilet for her off-grid compound. She asked our mutual friend, Daniel, to make her one. Daniel is a gifted maker– all his creations seem to have an inherent grace about them. Using the classic text, The Humanure Handbook, as a resource, he built her the most beautiful dry toilet system I’ve ever seen.

See more pics of this system and read Daniel’s story on his book-as-a-blog, The Cabin Dweller’s Texbook.

Also, we interviewed Daniel earlier this year for Root Simple Podcast #044.

How to Water Trees During a Drought

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Fruit Trees, Gardening, Trees, Water Conservation
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This is a practical follow-up to my scree last week on trees dying because no one is watering them. Thing is, we should be watering them, even if we’re really worried about the drought, even if we’re doing everything we can to save water. We need to invest in trees because they save more water than they use. They are our allies in this drought, and they are dying.

Now, I thought I was going to have to write up all this tree-watering stuff from scratch, but our friend Richard Hayden, the head gardener of the amazing Nature Gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, sent me a note with links to these videos produced by the Forest Service. I like these videos because they’re concise, and the info is solid.

Thank you, Richard!
Thank you, Forest Service!

The video at the top of the post is on watering mature trees, the one at the bottom about watering young trees–the two techniques are a bit different.

Also, you can find more learning resources at Tree People.

048 Toilet Talk

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Podcasts, Water and Power, Water Conservation
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On this week’s podcast we discuss our new low flow toilet and the concept of humanure. During the show we mention:

If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. A downloadable version of this podcast is here.

DIY Portable Pizza Oven

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Appropriate Technology, Food, Water and Power
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I just spoke with Eric Rochow of GardenFork.TV .(He’ll be our guest on the next podcast.) If you don’t know Gardenfork, you should. Eric has put together a lot of cool videos and podcasts. One of my favorite is this portable pizza oven. I’m thinking of building one for local events. For more info on Eric’s pizza oven check out his pizza oven page.