In the nine years that Frost has been installing Burbleboxes, he’s seen the contraption correct such problems as moldy basements, cracked foundations, termites (which thrive in moist soil), and even leaky basements and crawlspaces.

But the Burblebox’s applications go beyond fixing water worries. The boxes themselves may be installed in flower and vegetable gardens, so they become irrigation devices.

Jack and Diane Brookshire had two Burbleboxes installed at their homes last summer to help with a cracked foundation and a leaky utility room on the west side of their home. Since the boxes were put in, the Brookshires haven’t had a single drop of water in their utility room.

“They work very well for us,” says Mr. Brookshire. “My wife is very happy with them; she has a lot of plants and they distribute water to her gardens.”

But the Frosts began to realize that the more water that’s kept in people’s gardens and yards means les water going into the storm sewer systems. In his research, Greg Frost has determined that just one inch of rain on a 1,000 square foot house - which is small - produces 625 gallons of rainwater. He also figures that every year, approximately 34,000 gallons of rainwater runs off each household in Lawrence. “If one assumes that there are 60,000 households in Lawrence, that’s 2 billion gallons of rainwater every year that runs off roofs, down downspouts and into our storm drains,” Greg Frost says.

“This is huge if our city wants to conserve water and not have it go down storm sewers,” wife Melissa agrees.

It’s significant because rain water that runs down storm sewers is never treated. That water, complete with lawn chemicals, eventually ends up in the Kansas River which supplies the city’s drinking water. It is also significant because all of the water that’s running off people’s yards could be used to irrigate landscaping. flower and vegetable gardens.

Matt Bond, storm water engineer with the city of Lawrence, thinks that Frost may be onto something.

“It’s certainly a delay in the time that means less water released to the storm sewer,” Bond says. But Bond thinks it would be interesting to see even more research into the Burblebox.

“It would be interesting to put the Burbleboxes in a whole neighborhood and measure the amount of water being released in the storm sewers,” says Bond. “Could it, for instance, make a five-year storm look like a two-year storm? I think they should do some more inquiry into it to help market their product.”

Greg Frost would like to see every home with a Burblebox, thereby reducing the amount of treated water people must pay for to irrigate their gardens. Because, the Frosts say, there are predictions of global water shortages in the foreseeable future.

“I just dont think we can continue to irrigate everything we want,” he says. “If you think the wars over gas and oil are something, what do you think the wars over water will be like?

OUR STORY.

Greg Frost and his wife Melissa are ready to lead a water revolution. They believe that with Greg’s invention - the Burblebox - thousands of gallons of rainwater might be kept in people’s yards and gardens and out of storm sewers. Currently, the Burblebox is awaiting a patent.

For the past 30 years, Frost has made his career in masonry work. Often, he works on repairing the foundations for Lawrence’s most historic homes.

In his work, Frost often found himself trying to help homeowners correct a leaky basement or a sinking foundation by dealing with water runoff from the home’s roof. In order to help equalize the moisture around a foundation, Frost invented the Burblebox. He began installing them in about 1997.

The way a Burblebox works is this: Frost hooks up PVC pipe to the downspout or downspouts that are causing the water problems. The solid PVC then runs into one or more Burbleboxes, which are buried just beneath the surface of the soil, depending on the homeowner’s needs. The Burblebox holds a few gallons of water, but has holes in it to release rain water into the ground.

If there’s a torrential rain, the water will actually “burble” out of the top of the box more holes, spilling onto the lawn or into a garden. Frost is working on several attractive natural stone designs for the top of his Burbleboxes.