Water features

One of the rooms in the house that hasn’t been mentioned often—yet gets daily use—is the bathroom. With the bathroom being the top water user in the house, the water features installed here are helping conserve water in several ways.

The New Norris House was built with a rainwater cistern and purification system which delivers harvested and treated rainwater to the toilet tank (and to the clothes washer and outside hose bibs as well). Systems like this aren’t common in the U.S., and the system here is being used under a special permit. According to the EPA, one toilet can use 27% of a household’s daily water, and older toilets use between 3.5 to 7 gallons of water per flush. It makes sense to use rainwater instead of fresh water for flushing given those numbers, since fresh water is a finite resource and harvested rainwater, a naturally replenished resource, works just as well.

rainwater cistern (gray container) and purification system (blue cylinders)

The toilet also has the water saving feature of a low flow/dual flush system (Kohler Persuade model). Either .8 or 1.6 gallons are used per flush depending on which button is pressed. This means the rainwater isn’t used up quite as quickly, but if we lived in a house with standard plumbing, this toilet would be using less pure drinking water for flushing as well. Because I’m living in a house where the rainwater is harvested, treated, and reused, I’ve become more aware of water usage and potential ways to adjust no matter where we live next.

Another bathroom water feature that’s probably more common is low flow fixtures. The shower head and sink faucet are both low flow. “Low flow? I don’t like the sound of that.” Admittedly, neither of us are huge fans of the lack of water pressure with the low flow shower head, but because it can cut water consumption by half, it also makes sense to have it installed in the bathroom. And, to save energy on heating costs, the water is heated with a solar water heating and tankless system.

Besides the water features, the design of the bathroom is worth noting. The same design principles used in the house were applied to the bathroom as well; it’s small but makes efficient use of the space. The room is almost 10’ long, with the stall shower at one end, the sink in the middle, and the toilet at the other end. At its widest on the shower end, the room is 3.5’ wide and at its narrowest on the toilet end is 2.5’ wide. Like the bedroom, it has a pocket door to maximize space. For storage, there is a medicine cabinet, a cabinet under the sink, small shelves on the side of the sink, and a shelving unit above the toilet.

Although it’s a small room, I’ve learned quite a bit about conserving water and energy from living in the house. You can also learn more about our project at www.thenewnorrishouse.com.

A Tour for the Kids

One of the goals of the New Norris House is to have a positive impact on the local community. We recently hosted a second grade class from Norris Elementary. The kids were really excited to see what they are learning in school being applied in the local neighborhood. After taking two groups through the home and landscape, our tour was unfortunately postponed due to weather.


We were very impressed with how much the kids already knew about living sustainably. They had some great questions and it was a pleasure to hear them share about what they were learning in school. The teachers at Norris Elementary must be doing a great job! Hopefully we will be able to reschedule soon!

If you have a group that would like to tour the home and landscape contact us at newnorrishouse@tennessee.edu

Very Local Produce

Clearing the community path and separating seedlings

Nothing feels more like Spring than planting a garden, and at the New Norris House that's exactly what happened this weekend. Mary, Eric, and I spent some time doing general yard maintenance, and we also planted the raised vegetable beds. The beds were designed and built by students last summer, and we used stockpiled dirt from the house foundation excavation to fill the beds. We also added any vegetative waste produced from clearing the invasive plants, and let the soil sit all winter long. Now it is a beautiful, rich soil filled with worms and ready to produce!

We planted rainbow swiss chard, red cabbage, cauliflower, heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots, fennel, arugula, gourds, and cucumbers. We also planted zinnias for cut flowers and to attract pollinators. In a few months we should have a huge harvest. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe we can add a County Fair Biggest Vegetable Award to our accomplishments!

We began by properly spacing all the plants before digging any holes

See the rich, dark soil under the hay?

As part of our efforts to collect and re-use the rainwater that falls on our site, our vegetable beds will be irrigated via a 200 gallon cistern located at the low end of the beds. The irrigation cistern is currently full of rainwater and ready to be used. We're looking forward to a summer of sustainable farming - right in the backyard!