Why You Can Trust This Information
Oasis Design is a—quite possibly the—preeminent source of trustworthy source of integrated design, water efficiency and reuse information since 1989.
With greywater, Oasis Design has walked central, neutral ground between warring factions during sweeping
changes in the emergent greywater industry. Our information and consulting clients entrust us with their darkest greywater secrets, system manufacturers keep us abreast of their offerings, we collaborate with academics on research. As we have become the world’s greywater “information central,” regulators and elected officials increasingly seek us out for consulting on policy and writing standards.
We publish the most popular books on greywater; have developed numerous key greywater innovations and published them free and unpatented into the public domain, including Branched drain greywater systems and the Laundry to landscape
system; developed the first plant and soil biocompatible laundry detergent; and helped develop better grey water policies and scientific understanding. Our quantitative health analsyes of the hazards atributable to the built envirment are widely regarded. Our quantitative greywater risk analsyis set the stage for a sharp turn towards rationality in the California greywater code.
Since we don't sell any system, it's easy for us to be neutral about hardware. (We developed the world's first plant and soil biocompatible laundry detergent, but we sold that business in 1996.) Most information you'll find that is at odds with the information here is from manufacturers with a stake in a particular system, or is based on just a dash of experience.
The quality and credibility of our information is the key to our livelihood; most of our income is from information.
We don't have much stake in any particular system, whereas our livlihood depends on being a trustworthy information source for all ecological design. Where no greywater system is appropriate, we gain credibility by saying so. Likewise if a manufactured system is more suited than a DIY system we developed. When a better way of reusing greywater is found, we just update our information—we don't have a warehouse full of obsolete systems to sell through. (Our main greywater book is currently in its 19th revision).
You'll find older versions of this content replicated all over the web; this is the source. We appreciate your links, likes, and direct book purchases; they support our public service research, development, and free content.
We hope this information helps you manage your resources wisely--
--The Oasis Team
Footnotes
Our approximate net income breakdown:
- 60% Books and downloads
- 25% Design consulting
- 14% Lectures and workshops
- 1% Hardware (we offer only that hardware which our information clients were having severe trouble finding...it is our lowest margin area and we'd be happy to be rid of it)
Systems we have developed and frequently recommend now:
- Branched drain greywater systems
- Laundry to landscape
- Green septic
Systems we used to recommend but have largely or entirely moved on from:
- Laundry drum (superceded by Laundry to landscape )
- Perforated pipe under raised bed (one of our nicest drawings...we took it out of Create an Oasis because people were using it far outside of the few percent of situations recommended
- Moveable drain (we developed this but have backed off from it due to excessive use of PVC with high levels of plasticizers)