Dear Readers,

William and I have been constantly mentioning the Hydraloop in our blogs and diagrams, but I don’t believe we ever wrote a blog about how it works…

So! Being better late than never…This is that blog, fulfilling that duty we take upon ourselves to explain the mesmeric methods behind all this magnetic madness.   

The Hydraloop is about the size of a fridge…so it is rather large. But it needs that space to do the magic that it does! It is designed to clean water from the shower, bath, air conditioning and washing machine without the use of any filters or chemicals. Instead of using filters to treat this greywater, it uses a combination of sedimentation, floatation, dissolved air floatation, foam fractionation, an aerobic bioreactor, and disinfection of the cleaned water with powerful UV light.¹ Phew…lots of big words that work cohesively to make this thing work. We are going to break ‘em down, don’t worry!²

But! Before we do, we need to keep in mind the inputs to the Hydraloop and what kind of ‘debris’ they may contain. The water is coming from your shower, bath, air conditioner, and eventually laundry machine. Therefore, the debris will consist of hair, soap scum, dirt…etc. All of this ‘sludge’ was designed by Hydraloop to be discharged to a sewer or septic tank. However, as of now, and as you may already be perfectly aware: We. Won’t. Have. One! No sand mound. No public connection to a sewer. But we do have our composting toilet tanks, of course!!³ 

Lightly used greywater from the shower, bath, air conditioning and (optionally) from your laundry machine enters the Hydraloop from the top…

First Step: Sedimentation

Any debris that falls to the bottom of the tank will be discharged. Again, the design intends for these debris/sludge-like substances to be discharged to a sewer. Because we will not have a sewer hook-up, this debris will be sent to the Clivus Multrum composting tanks.

Second Step: Floatation

The dirt, soap, and hair that floats to the top of the tanks is skimmed off and discharged…to our composting tanks!

Third Step: Dissolved Air Floatation

Air is pushed up through the tank, creating millions of air bubbles which collect suspended solids and organic matter, and carry them to the top. Once at the top, the ‘sludge’ is skimmed off and discharged…to our composting tanks!

Fourth Step: Foam Fractionation

In combination with forced air, the soap, shampoo, and hair conditioner will naturally start to foam and collect other solids and organic matter with it. Once all nice and foamy, condensed, and at the top, the skimmer will remove and discharge…toooooooo our composting tanks!!

Fifth Step: MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor)

Inside the Hydraloop’s outside chamber, there are little plastic chip/wheel things that allow biofilm to grow on them. Air pushes the chips around and allows aerobic decomposition to take place.

Sixth Step: UV Disinfection

UV light disinfects the water going to the lower tank. Once in the lower tank, the water is circulated past the UV light every four hours to be re-disinfected. 

From the lower tank, the water is sent to either flush toilets (in our case, our foam flush Clivus Multrums), do the laundry, fill a swimming pool (we will definitely NOT have one of those…), irrigate the garden…or to other non-potable uses. 

Now, let me explain how doing the laundry with greywater from the Hydraloop works…a procedure definitely exists for this one. Well, rather than a ‘procedure,’ let’s call it a ‘circular’ relationship….

When the laundry machine pulls treated greywater from the Hydraloop for a load of laundry, the Hydraloop will begin to run a 3-cycle algorithm. For the first two cycles of washing clothes, the Hydraloop will use treated greywater. For the third and final cycle, the rinse cycle, the Hydraloop will pull freshwater from our rainwater pillow and send it to the laundry machine. Even though the treated greywater is safe to use to rinse clothing, the Hydraloop is still designed to pull freshwater instead⁴ ~ perhaps because people feel funny about having their laundry rinsed with treated greywater? Or, it may be a code thing. Not totally sure!

Anywho. The greywater used in the first two laundry cycles is designed to be discharged to a sewer. Ha, but, as we have mentioned once or twice, we will not have a conventional sewer. We intend to send that laundry effluent to our indoor leach fields and greenhouse for filtration instead. The freshwater used in the third cycle to rinse the clothes is sent to the Hydraloop for treatment and reuse. 

The Hydraloop’s lower tank has the capacity to hold 80 to 160 gallons of treated greywater. In the event that the Hydraloop treats more greywater than the lower tank can hold, we will have that excess water go to a greywater pillow. This pillow will be specifically for outdoor hook-up (as in: washing cars, irrigating gardens, etc.). This greywater pillow should not be confused with our rainwater pillow. Rainwater pillow is for potable usage…Greywater pillow is not. 

As far as maintenance goes, the Hydraloop is self-cleaning. If something does go awry, the Hydraloop will switch to back up water (in our case, the water from our rainwater pillow) and send us and our Hydraloop installer a notification through email. 

This filtration system is indeed NSF certified! You can check out the results from their NSF/ANSI 350 testing period here: NSF | hydraloop US/UK. NSF/ANSI 350 certification is also of course helpful for meeting PA DEP code!⁵ 

William and I are eagerly awaiting the day to officially begin using the Hydraloop, as well as officially integrate it with all of our other mesmeric methods: composting toilets, indoor leach fields, indoor greenhouse, rainwater collection….all of this accumulating into some marvelous magnetic madness 🙂

Mwahahaha…

Until next time our little minions!

Shelby Aldrich