Milk Crate Gravity Sink

Hello, hello ladies and gentlemen. When I work on my projects, I do it in a shed on the side of my house. I frequently find myself in need of a source of water or a place to wash my hands off after a particularly messy teardown. To remedy this, I built this little gravity sink that uses the siphon action of water to pour constant water from the hose until the water runs out. This is a great little project for camping with an added waste water collection jug for safe disposal of the water afterwards.

The materials you will need include:

-Two gallon plastic jugs.
-A large volume container for holding the clean water I used a cat litter container.
-A few feet of plastic tubing. Purchase this from most hardware stores.
-Five milk crates. These are easily obtainable from stores or businesses. Luckly where I work, they commonly just throw them away.
-A method of holding the crates together. I went with some recycled wire because it will be a permanent installation, and I wanted to keep with the recycling idea. Zip ties are great, too, as well as small bungee cords if you want to make it portable.

The tools you will need include:

-A super strong pair of scissors or clippers that can cut through the plastic
-A sharp knife
-A pair of pliers
-I did not take a picture but you will need a hot glue gun
-And few feet of rope

The first step is to construct the stand. This is done by stacking two crates on top of each other with the opening facing the user and then twisting wire in the center of all four unions between the box. This is done for optimum stability. Continue adding crates to the top and securing them in this manner until a small tower of milk crates is formed.

The reservoir is made by placing the large container onto the top shelf of the tower. Plastic tubing is placed long enough for it to sit in the very bottom of the container. The tube is routed up and out of the tower before running down the back. And finally ran into the fourth crate with enough tube to be folded upwards to stop the flow of water.

To catch the water, a basin is need. This is made by cutting the bottom off of the jug and placing into a hole cut in the bottom of the fourth milk crate. The jug can be secured with rope. A length of tube is then placed in the lid of the overturned jug. This is done by adding a hole to the top of the lid, inserting the tube and then adding a liberal amount of hot glue around the hole. The remain amount of tubing can be led down the structure and placed into the last jug to catch the waste water for proper disposal.

The last step would be to fill the jug with water and suck the water through the spout hose to create a siphon. Tuck the tube away when not in use to prevent a waste of water and empty the disposal jug properly when it becomes full. This setup can be packed easily into a vehicle and reassembled at the camp site or wherever need be for a simple portable gravity sink. The multiple shelf design provides a great storage solution for one to keep soap, towels and other cleaning or miscellaneous items.

If there are any ways you could improve on this design, please post below. Thank you and have a nice day.