Four newly built homes trial greywater units in the region; first in Ontario

The region has launched a pilot project alongside their partners in four brand-new homes, aiming to reduce water usage and cut down on water bills locally.

It’s the first time in Ontario that greywater units by Hydraloop have been implemented. They are utilizing new builds for the pilot project as it is easier to install, rather than trying to retrofit an older home for the greywater units.

The greywater units take shower water or laundry water, treat it internally then pump it back into a household, reusing the water and ultimately cutting down on water usage.

“The amount of water that’s being used daily, multiple times a day; it makes sense to do what we can to conserve water, and I think this is a way for us to be more efficient,” Regional Councillor Colleen James said in an interview with CityNews Kitchener. “If we were to kind of retrofit and put it into already built homes, the piping and all of that, it could be extremely more expensive than it currently is when you just implement it from housing design, so it is going into new home builds at this present time.”

After partnering with Hydraloop, the region put out a call for developers to be part of the pilot, to which Activa responded.

The four newly built homes that have greywater units in them are located in Activa’s Trussler West community.

The idea is to record their water usage over the next year to track how much the greywater units cut down on water bills for those homes.

“It’s really something to showcase how we’re looking at innovative ways to reduce water supply,” said James.

Greywater units have already been implemented in other countries like the U.S.