The basic cycle of the Playa Paul Revolutionary Greywater Evaporation System is simple and effective.
Your greywater is poured into the 54 gallon tank, perhaps through a small funnel and filter to clear out the largest particles that you don’t want ingested by the system. The water in the tank is slowly pumped out and filtered by the cartridge filter and pumped up to the 5 gallon bucket with the bell siphon. This bucket must be suspended several feet above the evaporative cooling pad. Normally, this is part of the PVC framework that makes up your system. The bucket fills up to a point and the bell siphon kicks in, discharging the water out of the bucket very quickly – about 15 gallons per minute flow. This water flows out towards a distribution header located at the top of the evaporative pad. The pad is completely saturated from this flush of water. With the bucket now empty, the fill cycle starts all over again while the evaporative pad is allowed to drain and dry out.
Under optimum conditions, the dump will completely saturate the pad with minimal residual water draining back to the tank. The pump speed should not be adjusted so low that the bell siphon fails to properly engage or that the cooler pads completely dry out before the next dump cycle. The height of the standpipe in the bell siphon can be adjusted down for a smaller volume of water to saturate the pads if excessive water is draining after the dump. You will have to balance the pump speed and volume of dump for the best evaporative conditions. That being said, there is no harm in having the pads completely saturated all the time with lots of water draining back to the tank. It will only result in more power draw and could prematurely deplete your power system. Fortunately, this system uses so little power compared to systems that utilize a continuous flow of water
The constructions plans for the bell siphon will detail adjustments that can be made and problems you might encounter. These are usually limited to the siphon only dribbling water and never fully flushing out at the start or end of the cycle. Our engineering teams have gone to great lengths to ensure that the system will work trouble-free provided you followed all instructions fully or to the extent necessary for your own customizations.