ok to plumb dishwasher to a soakaway?

[R P McMurphy]

via a drain pipe is most conveniant. if i have to plumb it into the main sewer....i will have to have a very long pipe:(

steve

[stefek.zaba]

Sorry, you'll need that long pipe. Soakaways are for rain water: they're a "holding area" for rain while it's seeping into the surrounding ground. Filling up the gravel it was built with with congealed grease left behind when the detergent and hot water have cooled right down is *not* what you want to do. Maybe you can route the long pipe round the outside of the house, rather than the presumably more hassly indoor route? Or put the woshdosh closer to the sink? (You don't have to construct a completely separate run to the main sewer: there are lots of fittings around for plumbing d-w and washing-machine wastes into an existing sink waste, though you do need to watch for siphoning or backing up if you fix things up too naively...)

Stefek

[Dave Plowman]

A pal of mine did just this with a washing machine. Had to have the house underpinned.

[Huge]

Damn. So we've been erroneously running our waste water into one for the last 10 years?

[N. Thornton]

Hi

If you put the wishdosher next to the washing machine, you can stick the exit pipe into the soap drawer, so each time you wash the dishes you can also wash the clothes with the same hot water and detergent, and save on rinse water too :)

I wonder if there's anything one actually could clean that way? Welly boots, plant pots...?

Regards, NT

[stefek.zaba]

Fairy neuf, Huge; what I wrote was shorthand for "in the average (sub)urban house, the soakaway is sized and built only for clean rainwater". But my postings are typically prolix enough without putting all of the maybes, possibles, and outlier caveats...

Stefek

[Andy Hall]

You should submit this to Heloise.

I had never heard of this before until last week when a brochure appeared in a magazine advertising a book. Apparently it has been going in the U.S. for donkey's years. Most of the tips are submitted by readers and a lot are downright dodgy or hilarious.

There are some that are just plain wrong. For example, there is one about fizzy pop in plastic bottles which suggests that it can be kept longer and in a decent and fizzy state by squeezing the air out of the bottle. For a start, every parent knows that fizzy pop doesn't last five minutes anyway and moreover, the CO2 will come out of solution to fill the space because the pressure above the liquid will have been reduced.

The brochure is now in the cloakroom for edifying reading while using the facilities

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. Highly deprecated, and, over a period of time, leads to blocked drains. If you ever do any alterations your building inspector will want it upgraded.

There are now very strict rules about dispoasal of 'fould water' and bunging it into the water table is not on.

[John Laird]

I suspect Huge was referring to "grey water". He has a digester for the, err, other stuff (if you've been around long enough to spot the occasional post on dropping pump parts therein).

A drain guy working next door observed to me that one of my rainwater gutters was draining into the same gully as the kitchen and bathroom sinks. I politely suggested he neb off when he said I should do something about it. We don't have soakaways, nor separated main drains (if the presence of just the one inspection facility is anything to go by), so does it really matter exactly where the non-foul water meets ?

[Nick Finnigan]

... and in the NW it seems standard to have 'grey' water going into a rain water gully, even if you have to go past the soil pipe to get to it.

[John Laird]

In my case, I think it was the addition of a conservatory along the back of the house that prompted the previous owners to move some of the down pipes, resulting in a mix of rain and grey water in one gully. But I know from dye tests that *everything* ends up in the same drain eventually. I doubt they separated anything by design in the early 1900s.

[PM]

Only if the bottle is allowed to try and reach it's original shape. If you squeeze the air out and keep the bottle deformed somehow then it will keep fizzy longer.

(From

Pete

[The Natural Philosopher]

Obviopusly not, BUT the modern practice - and I am limited to Building rtegs guidelines - is a local uthority issue, and is more or less as follows.

(i) Peak flows from rainwater are extremely high.

(ii) Sewage treatment is pretty much mandatory - no one chucks shit in rivers anymore.

(iii) therefore it is important to separate rainwater from foul water of all sorts, in order not to overload sewers and treatment plants.

(iv) the classical way to do this is to run rainwater vua a separate system that dumps nto river systemnms directly (ditches and drains) or indirectly (via soakaways that store peak flow and allow it to percolate into teh subsoil over a longer period).

(v) Soakaways are prone over time to clogging with silt and decaying organic materials, and are not hugely effective especially in clay soils, hence the modern insistence on soakaway tanks that settle solids and may be cleaned. The traditional 'dig a big pit, chuck in hardcore and gravel, cover with a plsatic sheet and heap earth on top' approach will be rejected by most building inspectors these days - certainly round here on clay soil.

(vi) Soakways may result in deleterios subsoil movements and localised wet spots, and are supposed to be at least 5m away from foundations as a result.

Therefor the big danger of using a soakway for e.g. kichen waste outflows is that the hgh level of organic matrial eventually clogs them. My in-laws in fact have I suspect just such a problem. A (relatively =

15 years old) modern kitchen extension gully does not in fact feed the septic tank, but a soakaway that is totally blocked. The kitchen waste water spills out over the lawn and stinks.

This may well not be legally WRONG, certainly for the times in which that drain was installed, but in practice, its not so pretty.

I would strongly recommend that in all cases kitchen wastes be plumbed into the foul sewage circuit. At least these are designed to be cleaned in blocakages occur. What you do with rainwater is open to discussion - extenseive use of fast acting runoff sewers is part of the problem of recent flooding. Soggy gardens are now traded for flooded houses further down the flood plains.

>

[John Rumm]

Depends on how you squeze it apparently:-

[Andy Hall]

bottles that would stay in place if squeezed......

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Nick Finnigan writes

Also in the NW, in a 1920's semi. All the waste water - grey, soil, rain - appears to go down the same pipe.

[Owain]

"N. Thornton" wrote | If you put the wishdosher next to the washing machine, you can stick | the exit pipe into the soap drawer, so each time you wash the dishes | you can also wash the clothes with the same hot water and detergent, | and save on rinse water too :) | I wonder if there's anything one actually could clean that way? Welly | boots, plant pots...?

Presumably anything one doesn't mind smelling of the minted hollandaise sauce washed off the plates after breakfasttime Eggs Benedict Gordon Ramsay.

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

Note that I never said 'it wasn't done' merely that current envioprnmental thinking has it as a Bad Idea for reasons outlined in the earlier response.

And teh OP wa commenting on sink waste to a soakaway, not rainwater to the main sewage system.

[John Armstrong]

This is uk.d-i-y, you just install a vice in the fridge door to keep it squeezed.

[N. Thornton]

:) Well, what would go over the boots, pots, etc is exactly the same as what goes over the dishes in the machine, so that shouldnt be a problem. The only difference is the spraying time with the detergent, so cleaning would be significantly lses effective in a separate box - but who needs the wellies to be as clean as the china?

Theoretically I think it could work. Practically... I cant think of anything to wash this way anyway :) Unless it really would do the towels?

Regards, NT