Anyone Have Experience with Gray Water?

[airbiscuit]

You might pick up a few ideas from this video.

1. I like the idea of 2 tanks/barrels- The first one is like a settling tank/floating scum
2. I like having the discharge pipes go up and over, rather than a straight pipe out of the bottom (less likely to clog up

 

[garry1p]

I installed a gray water system from my kitchen sink and washing machine using 2 1/2" PVC runs 12FT above ground under the house then it goes underground 60 yards into a homemade septic tank out of there 10 yards (8 to 10 in. underground) into 5 40 pound bags of pea gravel.
2 years now and no problems so far, and no evidence of leaching to the surface.

 

[alpha&omega]

I have read that as well. They say keeping it on the surface does a lot better job cleaning it up because the microbes and oxygen is there. Maybe I am overthinking it a bit too much.


Duly noted! And a pipe over the edge is where this might just begin. But I think I can do better than that.

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall if you mentioned what you’re doing with black water. Are you in an area that has to worry about freezing temps?

Take a 55 gallon drum, cut one end off, then cut it in half vertically so you have two troughs, dig a trench, fill the bottom with gravel, lay the two halves of the drum in there like arches so you now have 70" long by 23" wide surface area, or about 11 square feet. Run a 2" perforated pipe inside the length of the drum, connect to shower drain line and bury it.

I did something similar to one of my rental properties that we nickname: “Dagobah”, because the house was basically built in a swamp. The trenches and holes I dug took me four times as long as expected because just below the topsoils was 4’-6’ of greasy clay. Burying 55 gal drums sitting on a bed of gravel and drain stone with the bottoms drilled out was not as easy as expected it to be.
Also take into account the amount of water I was worried about moving. A 120’ roof draining at each four corners. Plus two sump pumps in the crawlspace were draining into two of the corners.

Anytime you are using pipe that has drain holes, whether that be schedule 35, 40, or corrugated pipe, you want to wrap it with a sleeve/sock and place it into a bed of stone, which is then covered in stone as well. This prevents any vegetated, tree roots and and grass from entering the drain pipe. When attaching corrugated you will want to use a heavy duty waterproof Duct tape, whereas with pvc you will use cleaner, primer and glue.

There’s more I can add, but it’s getting late and I’ve already nodded off a couple times, causing me to rewrite this message.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall if you mentioned what you’re doing with black water. Are you in an area that has to worry about freezing temps?






I did something similar to one of my rental properties that we nickname: “Dagobah”, because the house was basically built in a swamp. The trenches and holes I dug took me four times as long as expected because just below the topsoils was 4’-6’ of greasy clay. Burying 55 gal drums sitting on a bed of gravel and drain stone with the bottoms drilled out was not as easy as expected it to be.
Also take into account the amount of water I was worried about moving. A 120’ roof draining at each four corners. Plus two sump pumps in the crawlspace were draining into two of the corners.

Anytime you are using pipe that has drain holes, whether that be schedule 35, 40, or corrugated pipe, you want to wrap it with a sleeve/sock and place it into a bed of stone, which is then covered in stone as well. This prevents any vegetated, tree roots and and grass from entering the drain pipe. When attaching corrugated you will want to use a heavy duty waterproof Duct tape, whereas with pvc you will use cleaner, primer and glue.

There’s more I can add, but it’s getting late and I’ve already nodded off a couple times, causing me to rewrite this message.

No blackwater, composting toilet. Good question though. My lack of perc is not a swamp issue, this site is up on a knoll surrounded by bottomland. The soil just seems to be tight clay surrounding rocky ledge on the top of the knoll. I do need to dig a few holes along the periphery of the knoll and test for perc, I think it might move water better.
We are in SE TN, so it freezes here but not hard and not deep. I think they say the freeze line is 7 inches for our location, but I highly doubt it would ever get that deep.

 

[alpha&omega]

Ha! Ours is minimum 48”. Hence why I was asking.

We have some thick clay here as well though. I’ve found that if you take a 36” or longer drill bit which is let’s say a 1/2” or larger, and you use it to drill down through the clay in several locations - it can really help with draining.

Something I learned from the Brits. They get a lot of rain, so their sports fields are always flooding. No matter what kind of drain tile was installed, nothing helped. Someone came up with the idea to drill deeper than a standard plug aerator would go and it solved their problem. Helped with the yard I had at my rental. Swamp or no swamp, the issue was the clay. If you don’t get past the clay, then you won’t get the percolation that you’re hoping for.

If that doesn’t sound like a doable option, run it out to the edge and let gravity and nature take its course. Be mindful that the water in that pipe may freeze up during the winter, so be sure to put enough of a slope on it to prevent that from happening.

Be sure to post pictures of whatever you decide. Cheers!

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Ha! Ours is minimum 48”. Hence why I was asking.

We have some thick clay here as well though. I’ve found that if you take a 36” or longer drill bit which is let’s say a 1/2” or larger, and you use it to drill down through the clay in several locations - it can really help with draining.

Something I learned from the Brits. They get a lot of rain, so their sports fields are always flooding. No matter what kind of drain tile was installed, nothing helped. Someone came up with the idea to drill deeper than a standard plug aerator would go and it solved their problem. Helped with the yard I had at my rental. Swamp or no swamp, the issue was the clay. If you don’t get past the clay, then you won’t get the percolation that you’re hoping for.

If that doesn’t sound like a doable option, run it out to the edge and let gravity and nature take its course. Be mindful that the water in that pipe may freeze up during the winter, so be sure to put enough of a slope on it to prevent that from happening.

Be sure to post pictures of whatever you decide. Cheers!

Hmmm, little post holes along that leach drain line filled with gravel might just do the trick to get that water to go down! Great Idea!