Draining Softener and Acid Neutralizer to Outside

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Chris Joseph

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HI Again. A few things.
1. I do have a battery operated backup in the sump, I still want to avoid using that and dischargin to outside ground.
2. Basement is cement. Second floor where washer sits is basic subflooring. No problem getting thru there.
3. Discharge Height is right at the limit of Marlo manual. 5 Feet above Valve on unit. Gonna begin exploring today to make the move.
 

Chris Joseph

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OK. All done. Here is my handy work. Unfortunately the Plumbers used pretty inflexible tubing, so I could not make an air gap without getting a kink in the tube. Thus I had to by clear flex tube and use two adapters. Perhaps one day I'll replace the whole tubing with the clear so there are no breaks. So, now I hope the distance from the top of the unit isn't too great. I've read it should be under 8' Vertical and less than 25' total and it is. Its coming up thru the subfloor, between the bathroom and utility room wall. And runnng down the drain used by the washing maching.

Comments? I have 45psi so I'm hoping backwash makes the distance. What if it doesn't? How would I know? Will I get a flood or damage the water softener?
Soft.jpg
 

Reach4

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Comments? I have 45psi so I'm hoping backwash makes the distance. What if it doesn't? How would I know? Will I get a flood or damage the water softener?
You would get reduced backwash velocity. So if you had a 5 GPM drain line flow control, maybe only 4 GPM would flow. Your softener DLFC is probably not that high. The backwash on the calcite filter may be higher with a 10 inch diameter tank taking 6 GPM or a 12 inch tank taking 6.8 GPM.

I think rising 10 ft up with your drain line is like not rising at all and having 40.6 PSI water pressure. There should be no problem, and you could go higher if need be.
 
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Bannerman

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If the clear tubing is entering the drain standpipe where the laundry machine drains, then an airgap does not exist.

An air gap is a physical space between the softener/filter drain pipe and the sewer line in which they drain. The purpose for the space is to ensure contaminated water cannot possibly enter the devices incase the sewer line should ever back-up.

Here is a link to an airgap made specifically for a laundry machine standpipe. http://www.airgap.com/mr_drain.html
 

Chris Joseph

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If the clear tubing is entering the drain standpipe where the laundry machine drains, then an airgap does not exist.

An air gap is a physical space between the softener/filter drain pipe and the sewer line in which they drain. The purpose for the space is to ensure contaminated water cannot possibly enter the devices incase the sewer line should ever back-up.

Here is a link to an airgap made specifically for a laundry machine standpipe. http://www.airgap.com/mr_drain.html
Got you.. So you are saying that this laundry drain, is not an air gap at all? I've read several places where it's OK to drain to a laundry drain.
 

Chris Joseph

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Got you.. So you are saying that this laundry drain, is not an air gap at all? I've read several places where it's OK to drain to a laundry drain. Is there any type of adapter that would fit on this outlet? Perhaps I go above the outlet box, above the standpipe.
 

Bannerman

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The laundry standpipe can be used to drain the softener and filter, but an airgap should be utilized. An airgap is as simple as a gap between the softener/filter discharge tube and the drain pipe it chscharges to.

Here's a thread that provides an example diagram in post #11. https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/air-gap-built-into-fleck-7000-drain.47080/

Your insatllation looks great BTW. When you mentioned in post #12 of going through the basement floor, I had expected that meant you were installing the drain tubes below the basement's concrete floor. It now is obvious your laundry room is located on the main floor so you installed the drain lines through the main floor above the basement, to the laundry room above.

As the connections at the softener and filter are likely both male barbed fittings, I doubt the one additional barbed connector in the photos, is offering much additional resistance.
 

Chris Joseph

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The laundry standpipe can be used to drain the softener and filter, but an airgap should be utilized. An airgap is as simple as a gap between the softener/filter discharge tube and the drain pipe it chscharges to.

Here's a thread that provides an example diagram in post #11. https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/air-gap-built-into-fleck-7000-drain.47080/

Your insatllation looks great BTW. When you mentioned in post #12 of going through the basement floor, I had expected that meant you were installing the drain tubes below the basement's concrete floor. It now is obvious your laundry room is located on the main floor so you installed the drain lines through the main floor above the basement, to the laundry room above.

As the connections at the softener and filter are likely both male barbed fittings, I doubt the one additional barbed connector in the photos, is offering much additional resistance.
Thanks Bannerman. It's gonna stay this way at least till Next week! Lets hope for no Septic Failure!! I'll get this right. Thanks for all the help.
 

Reach4

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Lets hope for no Septic Failure!!
A septic failure would cause the water to come out of your lowest drain. So that might be the floor of the shower, or even the rim of the toilet. The failure that your lack of an air gap contaminates your drinking water, in theory, could be something like this:
1. A clog in your drain keeps the water from draining from the standpipe, and it cannot make it to a lower exit.
2.The controller starts a regen, and during the regen, the breaker on that circuit goes out and the valving leaves a path between your potable well water and the drain line.
3. Your water pressure goes to zero.
4. the water sucks from the flooded standpipe to your water softener resin or calcite, and when the power goes back on, the controller connects the potable water to the resin/calcite again, and the sewage is now in your drinking water.

Maybe somebody has a simpler scenario.
 

Chris Joseph

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A septic failure would cause the water to come out of your lowest drain. So that might be the floor of the shower, or even the rim of the toilet. The failure that your lack of an air gap contaminates your drinking water, in theory, could be something like this:
1. A clog in your drain keeps the water from draining from the standpipe, and it cannot make it to a lower exit.
2.The controller starts a regen, and during the regen, the breaker on that circuit goes out and the valving leaves a path between your potable well water and the drain line.
3. Your water pressure goes to zero.
4. the water sucks from the flooded standpipe to your water softener resin or calcite, and when the power goes back on, the controller connects the potable water to the resin/calcite again, and the sewage is now in your drinking water.

Maybe somebody has a simpler scenario.
I feel better. And will clean that standpipe!! LOL
 
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diggity

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I don't know what the common recommendation is these days about draining into a septic system, but "where I come from" it is commonly considered a bad idea. Now the water and soil conditions here in Central MA may be different than where you are - we have very high hardness and iron, and hit-or-miss perc-ability - but pretty much every septic service guy and plumber I've talked to has said don't do it. Many stories of septic systems failing because of this. I recently re-did mine because we're moving toward a solution which works better for the iron (long story), so I still have dirt on my hands from a similar project. I drilled a 3/4" hole through the basement wall for the drain lines (which are combined using T fittings, and I made sure that they backwash at different times). Then I dug down on the outside of the house (miraculously, the soil was not frozen!), found the hole I made through the concrete, then dug a pit as deep and wide as I could get it a few feet away from the foundation, then put an upside down plastic trash bin in the bottom of the pit and ran the drain line into the bottom (which is now the top) of the bin. I back filled with a bit of gravel and wrapped the whole thing as best I could with landscape fabric before filling it in. It seems to be working fine, though I may re-do it some day because the line goes into the bin at about 4 feet depth, and our frost line here is commonly thought to be around 4 feet. Maybe I'll rent a mini excavator some day and dig it ridiculously wide and deep just for the fun of it. At the moment, it was the best I could do under the circumstances, but seems to be fine so far. I like the fact that the drain line is able to squirt right into the empty bin, so there is no impediment to the flow.
 

Mikey

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Sounds fine as long as your empty trash bin is empty. What happens to the water table in the spring?
 

diggity

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Sounds fine as long as your empty trash bin is empty. What happens to the water table in the spring?
The water table in that area is far, far below grade. One of the few advantages of building your house on the side of a hill. ;)
 

ditttohead

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Not sure of the specific local code. The backwash from the acid neutralizer (assuming it is a calcite system) is going to typically be clean water with a little dirt, maybe some ferric iron. No dangerous levels of any chemicals or anything else assuming your well water is simply low on pH and that is what you are correcting. It would be almost identical to the water that would come out after the system out of a hose bib. The backwash cycle is used to keep the media from turning into a brick and to remove the built up dirt/iron.
 

novamario

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I just want to add my personal experience with having my water softener backwash going into the house drain that goes to a septic tank.

When we bought this house a year ago, the sellers replaced the d-box and did a pressure backwash of all the laterals in the septic field. At the same time, we decided to put in a filter on the outlet of the septic tank (we payed about $850) to prevent any solids from going to the field.

That filter worked too well, after 4 weeks of moving in, my wife and I decided to check the filter to see how well it was working. To our surprise, the filter was so full, that it actually floated up and it started allowing solids through. So we decided to check every 3 weeks from that point forward to clean the filter. Every three weeks we opened up the tank, cleaned the filter (most of the time, it was so clogged up that the water level in the tank was over the outlet), put it back in, and closed the tank. We did this from August until May. Not fun.

I had done a lot of research, and I found the papers referenced here and in other forums saying that the backwash was bad, good, or that it would have no effect to the biology of the septic tank. Since some of the reading I had done said that the backwash of a water softener could alter the bacteria in the tank causing the solids to not settle I wanted to give this a try (I had no idea what else could be causing the filter to get clogged so quickly...) Based on this (and tired of opening the tank every 3 weeks to clean the filter), I decided to re-route the water softener backwash to the outside. I live in NJ so I wanted to prevent the backwash from causing issues if the outside temp was below freezing so I also purchased a Freeze Drain by Raybend (from Amazon) and decided to use that on the outside. My setup is basically a trap, 2 feet of 2" pipe going to the outside, 90 degree angle, to the Freeze Drain, to 4 inch PVC to the garden. I haven't gone through a winter with this setup but I'm hopeful that it will work OK.

Since that May date, we have been opening the tank regularly (between 3-4 weeks) to clean the filter and check how well it is working. I have to say that after re-routing the backwash to the outside, it has been night and day and getting progressively better. We just opened the tank today (Aug 20) and the filter was almost empty. At this point, we will open it again in 3 months to see how it is doing.

Based on my personal experience, I can attest that routing a water softener backwash into a septic system is detrimental for the operation of the system. I highly suggest routing the backwash to the outside of the house if you are using a septic system.
 

Treeman

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"Since some of the reading I had done said that the backwash of a water softener could alter the bacteria in the tank causing the solids to not settle I wanted to give this a try (I had no idea what else could be causing the filter to get clogged so quickly...)"

Even if the solids did not break down and fall to the bottom, the design of the tank outflow should not allow any significant solids to enter the outflow, unless your tank is woefully overfilled. This suggests that something was wrong with the outflow of your tank. Or, maybe your entire tank design is flawed.

How big and what is the design of your tank?? Any chance that the discharge pipe (often a Tee) is broken off? How much salt water were you pumping into it - i.e. the size and frequency of your softener recharge?

Any chance you are using powdered detergent?? A no-no.

Something just doesn't add up, because many people drain their softeners into the septic without any problems.
 
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