Looking to move the washing machine into a reasonably dry cellar, and need a method of pumping the waste. Looking at this:
but the 60C might be a problem on the rare occasions we do a boil wash
- I've emailed them. Also, £300 for a glorified pump/sump seems a bit steep.
Any experiences/suggestions?
Cheers, Rob
Looking to move the washing machine into a reasonably dry cellar, and
How fussy are you about appearances? You could just have it empty into a drum containing a plumbed in sump pump.
Mike
Yes, I remember this being done some years ago at a block of flats with a wash room in the cellar. I doubt it would pass the regs nowadays, but in this case I gues he would not care!
Brian
Plus how fussy are you about the consequences if the pump for the waste fails but the w/m continues merrily pumping through its wash and rinse cycles? (Former colleague found the consequences of a blocked waste were pretty dire.)
Which offers a fail safe(r) mode. Machines vary in how much water they use but IIRC its typically now below 100 litres a cycle so a tank (water butt?) capable of capturing a cycle's worth shouldn't break the bank if there's room and no aesthetic objection.
And you can always box it all in, if there's room.
In article , Robin writes
You could get away with a much smaller vessel if you installed a fail safe float switch to cut the power to the washer in case of pump failure. Say a 10 or 20l vessel, just a little larger than a machine full should do to give the pump time to clear the fast deluge from an emptying machine.
Overall, it sounds like a nice idea.
On Wednesday 02 October 2013 08:30 RJH wrote in uk.d-i-y:
DIY:
Fibreglass (GRP) tank, small cube.
Float switch to run attached pump.
2nd higher float switch to cut power to washing machine in the event the tank pump fails.I suspect a central heating pump might do the job quite well if mounted lower than the tank (to overcome priming issues, assuming the lift required is within its capacity).
If not, you could even consider a larger tank and thermostat so pump does not run until the contents have cooled.
Lots of possibilties...
Not recommended, it would jam at random intervals.
CH pumps are nearly all canned rotor types, which means the motor rotor is immersed in the fluid being pumped. The draw-back is that there are very small clearances between the motor's stator and rotor and any bits of crud will jam the rotor.
That's why many CH pumps are found to be jammed at 'switch-on-the heating' time, about this time of year, if you have a CH system with a corrosion problem.
A pump with a separate motor would be better for this application, or use a surplus/free CH pump and expect occasional stoppages.
Grundfos Sololift2 will do 90C for 30 minutes, but isn't going to be a whol e lot cheaper.
No experience with it.
Not at all.
Er, fairly fussy!
I have in fact done this before, about 10 years back. In the absence of a utility room I think it's a great solution. I used a dirty water sump pump with valve, and the cheapest vessel was a 100L rain water plastic barrel. In theory that should have worked well, but:
Notwithstanding these problems I'm happy to go this route again, and £50 is better than £300.
Any pump suggestions?
Thanks - the C3, about £250.
The Saniflow will only go to 60C, confirmed just now by the manufacturer. Surprised by that TBH.
I did something similar for a machine installed in a large boat . Needed about a 12ft lift. There wasn't really room for a sump type arrangement and sump pumps I had previously found needed cleaning regularly if they weren't to fail just when they are needed. What I did was to remove the impeller from the machines own pump but leave the housing in place so it could still catch loose coins etc in the way it should. The power supply for the pump was disconnected and then attached to relay . This switched a Stuart Turner pump with a bronze housing and impeller which was mounted immediately adjacent to the machine. Pipe from the pump onwards was done in 22mm copper ,the pump already had a ball bearing type non return valve but I installed another in the outlet pipe and an isolation valve as well so all could be cleaned with minimum water running back. The system worked well,the things that often cause pumpout failure such as coins ,screws etc could still be removed from the original pump housing through the access on the front . Used a wet capable vacuum to empty the water but you usually have to do that anyway unless you have a suitable floor.
G.Harman
Excellent idea. You'd want it around 60L or so, which is still trivially liftable when empty, for sooner or later you will need to take the empty upstairs into the yard to clean it out. Left uncleaned it will stink after a while.
60L HDPE drums are plentiful and cheap, but seem to be in only one colour; blue.
A neater more reliable solution. (I don't see a need to mod the built-in pu mp.) The downside is the waste pipe volume will return into the machine whe n pumping stops.
NT
Don't most washing machines add cold water before draining high temperature washes? Ours seemed to the last time I did one.
-- Richard
To be honest it seemed no worse than an unmodified machine in that respect, the non return valve on the pump plus the one in the pipe work a few inches along it stopped most water from running back. You are right in that it wasn't probably necessary to mod the machines own pump but at the time it was easier to reconnect the wires to the relay rather join some more in. On an old machine that didn't have electronics and circuit boards but mechanical switches and cams I may well have not bothered with a relay but such machines must be long in the tooth now. My machine was out of any warranty period so could be tinkered with which would be another consideration.
G.Harman
My dishwasher is spec'ed to do this without the addition of anything external. It's got a standard pump-out pump - the only extra bit of design for this is a non-return rubber flap. If you can find a suitable non-return rubber flap valve, your washing machine will probably manage to pump out. My one reservation would be if the trickle of water generated by spinning would be enough to keep the pump primed (which is not an issue for a dishwasher).
I've read through this thread, and it occurs to me what you should do is have a barrel big enough for all the water.
You then let it cool before you pump it.
This means (a) you can use a cold-water pump and (b) you save all the waste heat, as it ends up in the cellar.
Andy
Or, if it had a pump attached to it, he could occasionally swill it in situ.
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