Washing machine/toilet combo
The Washup is a concept design for a "Greener Gadget" contest that incorporates a washing machine into a toilet, recycling wash-water as toilet water, and saving space by absorbing the washing machine's footprint into the basin's. Link (via Geekologie)
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The big problem I see is when you try to get your clean clothes out of the washer and you drop them in the bowl.
As a family of 4 we do MUCH more laundry than we use the bathroom at home (during the day the kids are in school and parents at work).
It would need to have a lot of storage capacity to store the waste water during the week for the weekends.
What about all those poor, dropped socks?
You could use the clothes dryer as a butt dryer!
Sweet!
I'm still bitter that my electric dryer/shower combo did not win any awards.
Doesn't look too safe to have a short person get the clothes into or out of the washing machine if they had to stand on the toilet lid.
Also, where would you put the dryer so that it wasn't much of a hike around?
Who cares about the mashup..what about that camo toilet paper??
Worst potential for reverse flow failure EVAR!
Too bad the design is horrible. "Well, we can just bolt the washer on top of a toilet..." How about taking the opportunity to redesign the conventional form of both?
People that are concerned about dropping laundry in the toilet: I feel for the women in your household because they'll never teach you to put the lid down.
Seriously though, how can this win if there's no pull-out workspace/counter in between the toilet and the washer? That seems like a no brainer to me.
Um, so where's the dryer? If you're going to have something like this and claim that part of the appeal is to save space, you're basically wasting that space all over again by having a separate dryer. Stacked washers and dryers are nothing unusual. You could just as easily recycle the wastewater by having a stacked washer/dryer unit *next to* your toilet.
I live in an RV and this idea could be worked up into something for those of us in small spaces...and yeah, women won't be dropping any socks into the toilet!
I could argue that if we were really eco-conscious wouldn't need a clothes dryer... but it's irrelevant to me, because I want to keep my clean clothes as far away as possible from the fecal matter disposal bowl.
I've never been to Turkey, but when I lived in the UK, most people I knew didn't have dryers in their flats; if they did, they were washer-dryer combos that utilized the same drum.
Agreed re: workspace, though- the seat is too small to pull double-duty, and socks would end up in that no-man's-land between the base of the loo and the wall...
Better maybe to have the sink integrated to the toilet, and the water you wash your hands with is what you get to flush with.
Isn't there a potential for poop stank infesting your moist clothes?
whatcouldpossiblygowrong?
The vibration of the washing machine would wreak havoc on the wax seal between the toilet and the closet drain. Your wood framing would rot. This is categorized under "fail."
Ewwww - my dog would have to drink the dirty wash water!
A friend of mine has seen a washer something like this-- rinse water went into a tub next to the washer and was reused for the wash cycle of the next load. It cut down on water use pretty significantly. When I'm in a position to buy a washer, I'll probably look for and/or cobble together something like that.
I think Larry Niven summed it up when describing a spaceship module which combined "refresher" (ie, toilet) and food (re)synthesis, by saying that his character would have preferred "a less obvious connection".
The concept of reusing "grey water" to feed a flush toilet is entirely reasonable. But a separate tank with appropriate plumbing, while more expensive to retrofit, really would work better in this case.
At the very least, put the two back-to-back or side-by-side to address all the usage issues already cited. (Hm. Simply take existing washer, hook its drain into toilet tank, possibly improve the tank's overflow drainage... doesn't that do it just as well, with off-the-shelf parts?)
Issue: Clothes washer output is going to contain some lint and similar detritus. Might need to screen before reusing. Which means some hassle cleaning the screen. Oh well.
Note that dehumidifiers produce water which most of us currently just dump down the drain, and which will be relatively clean. Another good source of grey water, perhaps. Maybe we need a whole graded system -- dehumidifier feeds laundry, laundry and showers feed toilets... Probably too expensive while water prices remain cheap, but definitely worth considering where water is scarce.
Wake me up when they invent a garbage disposal/food processor combo.
Well, at least it's the toilet on the bottom, and the washer up top. Don't want to imagine the reverse of that (oops, just did, ew). Very good, carry on!
Diatryma
My mother used to do that.
see that white oval object near the bottom midpoint of the image? That is called a "lid"
Just helping those with the dropped object problem.
"awww man! I thought that was toilet paper! Well, back in the wash with you."
Why couldn't the door to the washer be on the side to prevent the dreaded "is it a poo or just a brown sock" event?
Newman100, you can buy a sink that retrofits to the top of your toilet from the Real Goods catalog. Hand washing water is used to for flushing.
I have to say my immediate thought was also "but - I always drop things getting them out of the washer". Despite the toilet lid.
For that matter, that's either one really small washer, or you're somehow supposed to reach your arm way down in there even though the opening starts a good five feet up. Nope, fail.
The sink-over-toilet idea is better, except that I generally want to, you know, be able to lean over my sink to spit toothpaste.
Really, the best solution is to just have a greywater/rainwater tank. And if you just want to use the space over the toilet, or live somewhere you can't go screwing with the plumbing, they already make cabinets/shelving units on tall legs for precisely that spaece - ideal for storing your extra rolls of toilet paper and your bathroom cleaners.
Hmmmm... Now if only they can incorporate the dryer into the shower.