[Sdpg] A rare opportunity to get on Oasis Design's consulting calendar

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

A rare opportunity to get on Oasis Design's consulting calendar

Oasis is accepting new clients for these designs:

Eco-luxury bathing chamber

A series of shower stall improvements that yield increased bathing comfort 
with drastically lowered water and energy use. Two people can have a half 
hour luxurious bathing experience culminating in a huge water fight--with 
the same energy and water one person uses in a five-minute military shower 
under an anemic low-flow shower head.
Green septic system

A green septic system enables 100% of household wastewater to be reused for 
irrigation of fruit or ornamental trees. The system provides exceptionally 
high treatment effectiveness, much higher per square foot treatment 
capacity, and longer life.
For more information, see 
http://www.oasisdesign.net/design/consult/specialties.htm


Oasis Design Specialties
http://www.oasisdesign.net/design/consult/specialties.htm

Summary: A description of highly promising, growing edge designs currently 
under development and available for clients with appropriate contexts.

On this page:
Eco luxury bathing chamber
Greywater greenhouse
Green septic system



If you would like one of these designs in your project, please E mail us 
from webpage

All of these designs involve both the excitement, risk and extra work of 
pioneering something new.

Eco luxury bathing chamber

The eco luxury bathing chamber is a series of shower stall improvements 
which yield increased bathing comfort with drastically lowered water and 
energy use.

In an eco luxury bathing chamber, two people can have a half hour luxurious 
bathing experience and finish up with a huge water fight—with the same 
energy and water one person uses in a five minute military shower under an 
anemic low-flow showerhead.

  The modifications stem from one key realization: bathers need only a 
small amount of water for getting clean, but (without realizing what they 
are doing) use quite a lot of hot water to keep from getting cold, even as 
evaporating water and air currents rapidly cool them.

Heat is being lost almost as fast as it is added. It takes a long time to 
raise one's core body temperature to the point where you can shut off the 
water, dry off and get your clothes on without getting uncomfortably cold. 
People are (understandably) reluctant to get out until that point; bathing 
is as much about sensual pleasure as cleanliness.

Conventional shower stalls are designed like wind tunnels; the only way to 
maintain comfort is to via a continuous stream of hot water, most of the 
energy in which ends up warming the drain pipes and fogging the windows.

The eco-luxury bathing chamber is designed to reduce heat loss by 
convection, conduction and radiation. It can optionally include floor 
heating. It can be designed to be used like a conventional shower, or for 
Japanese style bathing, with the water heated inside the thermal envelope 
of the bathing chamber, providing a sauna-like experience.

It is dried by ventilation between uses.

  This design is still evolving and has many custom elements, so at this 
point it is expensive to have made.

It is appropriate for a high end green home, hotel, or high use 
installations, where the energy and water savings can add up. The location 
must be an easy commute from Santa Barbara, California.


Gravity flow greywater greenhouse

A gravity flow, passive solar greenhouse provides supplementary heating of 
the home, winter greens, and year-round effective greywater treatment, with 
simplified maintenance relative to a pumped and filtered system.

This design would be appropriate for any installation where the greenhouse 
soil surface is sufficiently below the level of the greywater supply, and 
the effluent flow is a few hundred gallons per day or or less. The colder 
the climate, the more appropriate an indoor greywater system. The location 
must be an easy flight from Santa Barbara, California, which probably 
indicates a high-altitude, rather than a high latitude system.


Green septic system

A green septic system enables 100% of household wastewater to be reused for 
irrigation of fruit or ornamental trees. The system provides exceptionally 
high treatment effectiveness, much higher per square foot treatment 
capacity, and should have much longer life.

An Oasis original design, a green septic system is a fusion of state of the 
art passive septic system technology with Oasis's branched drain flow 
splitting and landscape/ orchard irrigation.

This is a new design, but the components are proven individually and the 
preliminary results are good.

A green septic system is suited for:
Leachfield replacement
Water reuse where greywater is entombed under a concrete slab
New construction

It should be permittable in most areas under the septic code, with the 
addition of a cooperative engineer's stamp. This system doesn't usually 
make sense where you're obligated to hook up to a sewer.

The location must be an easy commute from Santa Barbara, California. The 
cost should be not much more than a conventional system, in some cases 
possibly even less.


In a conventional leachfield, the majority of the effluent discharges 
through the first few holes in the perforated pipe, or the lowest few 
holes. This leads to progressive failure: a bacterial biomat forms in the 
small area where the effluent concentrates, lowering the permeability by 
approximately a factor of 100. The effluent then flows over this this 
small, overloaded area and overloads the next area, like a cigar burning down.

In contrast, the dosing distribution box, zone valves, and flow splitters 
in this system discharge the effluent in a controlled, long term reliable 
way to one discrete outlet per infiltrator, providing more even 
distribution than any other gravity-powered system of which I am aware. 
This dramatically decreases the likelihood of progressive failure 
originating at a small overloaded area. Wide dispersal also greatly 
increases the contribution of evapotranspiration to removing effluent from 
the soil, and the reuse utility of the water. Instead of one overloaded 
plant and several dry ones, all will receive the same amount of water.

Evapotranspiration assist

Evapotranspiration assist is a known aid to the capacity of 
leachfields—until they clog from root intrusion. Perforated pipe, with 
openings of 3/4” or less, is easily clogged by roots. The large, open 
gravelless infiltration galleys specified for this system (“infiltrators”) 
have proven highly resistant to clogging from roots in their application in 
evapotranspiration beds and between rows of grapes in vineyards. It is easy 
to see why—each linear foot of infiltrator has 432 square inches of outlet, 
compared to about an one inch per foot of perforated pipe. The roots have 
no incentive or means to grow through the air to the actual outlet a foot 
above the infiltration surface.

Serviceability

Unlike most leachfields, this system will incorporate design for total 
serviceability. Covered inspection/ access ports will be provided to each 
infiltrator and it’s inlet, all leachfield distribution piping, flow 
splitters, and the distribution box. this one will have complete 
serviceability.

In other infiltrator systems which do not incorporate the even loading 
feature this one does, the original perk rate has been successfully 
restored by pressure washing the biomat off of the earth floor of the 
infiltrator.  Our plans designate a location for a 100% replacement area as 
required by code, but it is exceedingly unlikely this will ever be needed.
Leachfield zones

The distribution box will be outfitted with valves which can be used to 
move the effluent between infiltrator zones. Experience has shown that 
diverting effluent for just a month causes any biomat which has formed to 
die, restoring the percolation rate to nearly its original value.

  If you would like one of these designs in your project, please E mail 
us.from Website

  Snail mail, phone & fax:
Oasis Design
5 San Marcos Trout Club
Santa Barbara, CA 93105-9726
Phone 805 967-9956 fax 805 967-3229

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