THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9406300196
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK DUROSE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Take longer showers and decrease your water bill.
Incredible as it may sound, it may soon be true, as Marv and Jack Gilliam move to install their newly designed water-recycling systems in Virginia Beach homes.
For a city of people becoming weary of water conservation, dwindling resources and increasing costs, and in the face of new, unexpected delays in the Lake Gaston pipeline from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Gilliams' invention may prove to be popular.
Their promise: The system can reduce household water bills by one-third to one-half by cutting city water consumption by the same amount. The system, called Hummingbird, accomplishes this through the recycling of bath and sink water, used in the bathroom. Before, water from showers and sinks simply went down the drain. With Hummingbird, the water flows into a storage tank, and, in turn, is used to refill the toilet bowl.
``The whole point is that when you take a bath or shower, you're using that water to flush your toilet with,'' said Marv Gilliam, a former Naval Air Reserve pilot, engineering technician and freelance cartoonist, who invented the system. Gilliam said that approximately 1 1/2 to 2 gallons are lost with every flush of the toilet, and anywhere from 7 to 15 gallons for showers and baths.
``It was really a weekend project that got out of hand,'' said Gilliam, who lives in Fairfield, Va., near Staunton. ``I looked over my wife's shoulder at the water bill and saw that we were using between 8,000 and 10,000 gallons every two months. I thought, there must be something I can do about that.''
In March 1993, he set about to engineer a way to put water back into his 35-year-old septic tank so he could use it as a holding tank. What he came up with decreased his water consumption by 4,000 gallons each billing period. When the local paper, the Rockbridge Weekly, published a story on him and his ``weekend project,'' the story was picked up by the Associated Press, and he began to receive calls from all across the country and even Canada.
``That's when I decided I'd better take it seriously, and I went to get a patent on it,'' said Gilliam. ``What I found is that this isn't a new idea, per se, it's just that what they had are complicated hunks of machinery that take up a whole room.''
The Hummingbird is a plastic 55-gallon drum, with a relatively small motor attached, that, when empty, can be carried by one person. So far, two models have been manufactured from Gilliam's design and prototype by Anderson-Hill Manufacturers, also based in Fairfield. One is for basement installation and the other for outside the home. Both models currently sell for $895.
The outdoor model is designed horizontally, for placement in a small insulated storage shed. Because the system must be directly connected to the plumbing, homes built on cement slabs with underground plumbing are not adaptable for the addition. Gilliam and his son, Jack, hope to strike a deal with developers and contractors in Virginia Beach for new construction projects.
Gilliam, who has received the green light to install his systems on a trial basis in James City County and here, wants to focus on the Beach. ``With Virginia Beach in such need for water conservation, there's no need to go anywhere else,'' he said.
His partner and son, Jack, added: ``Virginia Beach will be the proving ground. This is where we'll really learn how effective they can be, and how to handle the business end of it. Plus, all the other communities are waiting to see what Virginia Beach will do. Soon, the rest of the country will look to Virginia Beach for how to make use of these brand new water-saver methods.''
The elder Gilliam agreed, saying he sees a huge potential for his device. ``What we're doing,'' he says, ``is setting the standards for water recycling in the home. There are no codes. We're breaking new ground.''
The existing codes, called the Building Officials and Code Administrators Plumbing Code, that covers the Northeast including Virginia, hadn't anticipated Gilliam's ingenuity and are rather general in this area. Cheri Hainer of the Building Codes Administrator's Office, in a letter dated Jan. 3, found that Gilliam's proposal ``meets the intent of the . . . BOCA Plumbing Code'' and that ``the systems . . . shall be approved for use in Virginia Beach.''
The system itself looks simple and has all the earmarks of the weekend project Gilliam claims it was. For example, the mechanism that filters out soap and particles from the influx of bath water is all-important. It's a knee-high nylon stocking. Because of the nature of the recycled non-potable, or ``gray water,'' a sanitizing element was required. Gilliam seized on chlorine tablets, like the ones used in pools. These two elements are also the ones that need the most servicing, about every 30-45 days, but Gilliam said anyone can replace a tablet, or a stocking.
``They're only like four for a dollar,'' he said of the stockings.
At this point, the Gilliams are looking for a distributor and developer ``who sees the vision, and the potential of this,'' said Jack Gilliam. But the Gilliams, who are working on what they both termed a ``shoestring budget,'' don't want any investors before seeing what they have on their hands. In fact, Marv Gilliam enrolled in a business course at a local community college in Fairfield to help him plot his own course, and what he mainly learned was that the professor really wanted to invest in the project.
``It's exciting,'' said Marv Gilliam. ``I thought my patent would cover only our designs, but it ends up I have a patent on all water recyclers. Anyone who builds something like this is infringing on my patent.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARK DuROSE
Jack, left, and Marv Gilliam promise that their water-recycling
system can reduce household water bills by one-third to one half.
by CNB