Group 067-5: Water Reduction at The Thomas Jefferson Hospital

Week 3 Blog Post              The group members list down the materials that are needed for the rainwater catchment, greywater recycling, and stormwater management systems and their costs. They also did further research of the rainwater catchment, greywater recycling, and storm water systems that might help them develop the designs of these systems.              The data needed for this project were also identified, such as the average precipitation in Philadelphia. Table 1 shows the rainfall depth for every month. This data will be used to know how much water can be collected from the systems and how much lesser the water usage from the main source is. Table 1 Monthly rainfall depth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (data is from https://www.idcide.com/weather/pa/philadelphia.htm)

Week 2                This week we focused on learning more about the site we would be focusing on. We discovered the exact building we’d be working o n at the Thomas Jefferson University campus would be the Dorrance H. Hamilton Building. The building is located in Center City, Philadelphia, the very urban part of the city. Because of this, little of the water will be reused for irrigation as there is none.                  It was also discovered that this specific facility currently operates as a teaching facility of the hospital. The breakdown of its water usage was determined. This data and other facts can be found at https://www.jefferson.edu/content/dam/tju/Hamilton/Hamilton_Building_Fact_Sheet.pdf “ www.igreenspot.com/watree-–-an-upside-down-umbrella-that-collects-rainwater/ ” Also, a possible location for the rainwater catchment system was discussed. This ...

The goal of this project is to reduce water usage of an existing building by 50%. This will be done by adding water systems to the building that will help collect water from resources that people do not usually use such as rainwater, stormwater and greywater. The existing building that will be retrofitted is the Dorrance H. Hamilton, one of the buildings of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Rainwater catchment system, greywater recycling system, and stormwater management system will be constructed in the building to collect water and to reduce water usage of the building. Graph 1 shows the allocation of water in a healthcare facility. The goal of this project is to reduce water usage. The three systems mentioned above will provide alternative water resources for uses the excludes medical processes and other uses that is potable.

 Week 1               In the first week of lab, we decided which project we wanted to focus on that would make an environment more sustainable. We chose to focus on the water efficiency of an existing building, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. In the hospital, pictured to the right, we will find ways to reduce water usage by 50% through methods of rainwater catchment, greywater recycling, and storm water management. This week we also decided what our deliverables will be for each method of reducing water usage. For rainwater catchment, we will build a funnel to collect water and then bring it to a tank where it will be filtered. To the left is an example of the system we would hope to build. The top portion funnels the water into a shaft which will bring the rainwater down into the tank. The greywater recycling deliverable, will be a system which collects water and coagulates suspended particles in the water to then...