Some septic advice, here..

[blueh20pc]

Guys, I got an idea, which is generally a bad thing.

My air handler is inside my back basement (man room), and it has a catch pan underneath of it for the ac drain. Plumber into the side of that catch pan is a drain line, that runs through my wall and right onto my back sidewalk around the house. Usually makes a nasty slimy mess on the sidewalk that drives the misses nuts. Last year at the end of the AC season, my drain line got plugged with crap, and quit draining. House is about 20 years old.

I took a 5/8 drill bit to the bottom of the pan, and drained it into a 5 gallon pail for the last few weeks. I watered all sorts of flowers with the bucket, shoot, even the dogs were drinking the handled water. I was in heaven, saving water and never have to fill a bucket for the dogs again.

My kitchen sink 2" drain line runs right beside the AC platform, so I got to thinking...

I went to home depot and got (starting from the sink drain) a 2" Y valve, a 2" trap, neck that down into 1", got a one way valve and a 1" T connector, then 1" pipe to go to the bottom of the drain pan.

So what I'm thinking of doing is keep one 5 gallon bucket down here, keep my valve open so the water runs into my spetic system, but when I want to fill my gallon bucket for watering plants, I just turn the valve and it fills the bucket instead of draining into the septic.

My question is, on a really humid day the AC produces about 15 to 20 gallons of water. Will that constant 15 gallons of relatively fresh water harm my septic?

Figuring it's just water, it should run out to the drain field, right?

[Capt. Fred]

I'm not sure from your description where your traps are but remember that during the winter the air handler is not producing condensate and your trap can dry out. That will allow septic gasses up into the air handler. Not a huge deal if you remember to fill the trap from time to time but it is not allowed by code for just this reason.

As to any effect on your drain field. I'm not sure but it doesn't seem like much extra water for a modern field to handle on a daily basis.

[blueh20pc]

Never thought of that, Very good Ken....

In the winter I'll have to dump some water in there every now and then. Or get another ball valve so I can seal the system.

[Domino Effect]

Chris, I would think the constant flow of fresh water would cause all the natural bacteria to not effectively do its job. I didn't see in your back yard while we there but do you flowers around your sidewalk or back deck? if so re-route the drain and build a french drain, dig a trench about 1.5-2 feet deep and get 15-20 feet of field line with a a 90 deg angle turned up to catch water and a cap on the end put a layer of pea gravel in bottom and cover with the soil removed for trench. I had to do this on the side of my house because of the red clay not draining well. It's also a good idea to take your hose and blow the crud out of the drain line periodically and put some bleach thru it also to clean up the moldy slime growing in there.

[Garett]

I'm no septic tank specialist by any means, but thinking over your question I'd have to say no good could come by passing 15-20 gals of fresh water through your tank every day for months on end. A holding tank is just that, a holding tank. Constantly flushing that tank out with fresh water would have to decrease the friendly bacteria levels and therefore decrease the effectiveness of the holding tank to treat grey matter.

As far as plumbing your A/C discharge into your garden for watering, I like that idea. But, you should have some sort of diversion route in place, "most" plants Don't like to live in basically standing water......15-20 gallons a day is a lot of water! Now if you were to make basically a bus route of sweater hoses throughout your whole garden with gate valves to direct water flow PLUS having some sort of free flowing discharge I think you could be the talk of the town.

[Capt. Fred]

Chris, your septic system is designed for somewhere between 110 and 120 gallons of flow per day per bedroom. (depending on state codes) That is figuring on 2 people per bedroom, 55 to 60 gals per person. So if it is a three bedroom house, it is designed to handle about 350 gallons of effluent per day. Depending on how many bedrooms and how many people are actually in the house you can come up with a pretty good idea of how much the extra 20 gals will push you towards your maximum.

Also, its not water that usually kills a leach field, but it's the solids getting past the tank.

[Bigdaddy98]

I just got my heatpump replaced and had to extend my drain line 8 feet into a flower bed due to the added condensation. I clean my drain line once a year with a shop vac, works great.

[blueh20pc]

Originally Posted by Capt. Fred

Chris, your septic system is designed for somewhere between 110 and 120 gallons of flow per day per bedroom. (depending on state codes) That is figuring on 2 people per bedroom, 55 to 60 gals per person. So if it is a three bedroom house, it is designed to handle about 350 gallons of effluent per day. Depending on how many bedrooms and how many people are actually in the house you can come up with a pretty good idea of how much the extra 20 gals will push you towards your maximum.

Also, its not water that usually kills a leach field, but it's the solids getting past the tank.

Thanks Fred, I've got a 4 bed/3 full bath house with 4 occupants, so I was unsure about the extra 20 gallons a day.

Even though my family uses water like crazy, I think it won't matter to my bacteria. I haven't had the tank pumped in 5 years anyways.

I flush some of that rid-x stuff down once a month just to be sure.

[fishbard]

Your soil is basically sand on the Outer Banks. I am assuming your field is not in a swampy area. 15-20 gallons extra a day in a modern drain field should have no effect on the longevity of the system at all. You really should pump your tank once in a while, though. If the sludge gets out to the distribution box, you will be very sorry. You can open the tank up and poke something down into it to see where your sludge level has built to, if it is getting anywhere close to the lower end of the tee, its time call for a pump out. Lots of houses have condensate lines that go into the septic system, even in places that don't perk as well as yours probably does.

[blueh20pc]

Well,

I thought about it, and hopefully it doesn't kill my good bacteria....

Here's a few pics of the install, I had to solder together a box out of sheetmetal for the water to run into, then 5200'd the pvc into the box, then mounted the box below the pan, that way I wouldn't have a lip to trap water into the pan.

The trap and valve work great, and we'll just hope that I'm not pumping out the septic next week!