I had to use the laundromat tonight... my house STINKS!

[MossRoad]

I just checked ours, sort of a licorice taste...not bad.View attachment 775163

Nice!

 

[Oaktree]

Ours are 250 gallon verticals tiles. House, 1st 250, short pipe, 2nd 250, 20' of pipe, brick 1200 gallon brick beehive, 150-200' field tile (nobody's sure).

So you have 3 separate tanks? What's the advantage of that? AFAIK ours is just house-->tank-->leach field.
Have no idea when this was put in...PO (who'd lived here from the 60s) was deceased, granddaughters were handling the sale and they played dumb on any question I asked. I'd imagine modern systems are a lot more complicated.

 

[MossRoad]

So you have 3 separate tanks? What's the advantage of that? AFAIK ours is just house-->tank-->leach field.
Have no idea when this was put in...PO (who'd lived here from the 60s) was deceased, granddaughters were handling the sale and they played dumb on any question I asked. I'd imagine modern systems are a lot more complicated.

Yes, we have 3 separate tanks. Many single septic tanks have two chambers inside. Ours are just separate. As I understand it, the heavy solids settle out in the first one and are digested more before passing to the next. The liquids and lighter solids flow on to the 2nd one. The liquids pass on to either a dry well, or a leach field, where the liquids are supposed to seep into the ground through the bottom and holes in the sides of the dry well or holes in the leach field fingers.

However, over time, some solids may pass on to the dry well or leach fields and plug them up. That's what happened to our dry well many years before we bought the house. So the owners installed a long leach field from the top of the dry well water level. In effect, our dry well now functions as a settling tank for anything the septic tank(s) would pass on.

 

[MossRoad]

They look like this (not my image)... and are 24" in diameter and about 4-5' deep each. Note the baffles that are supposed to keep the solids from moving to the next tanks.

Ours are buried about 18-24" under the lawn.

 

[m1garand762]

They don’t recycle water and neither to car wash’s

 

[Oaktree]

They don’t recycle water and neither to car wash’s

A little Googling will prove you wrong, especially with car washes. Much less common with laundromats but some commercial laundries do re-use the rinse water from a previous load for wash water on the next.

The High Value of Recycled Water in an Automatic Car Wash | Columbia Auto Care & Car Wash

Is washing your car bad for the environment? Debates rage over the idea that an automatic car wash uses more water than you would if you washed your vehicle

columbiatireauto.com

 

[ponytug]

Gosh, every automatic car wash here recycles, with settling tanks, filters, and additives (e.g. polyphosphate) to help prevent resoiling. Usually, the second wash cycle feeds the first, so things get cleaner as the car moves around. Rinses are clean water, and often RO water to prevent spots.

Lots of great articles and videos out there, if you are interested.

All the best,

Peter

 

[prairiegirl]

Years ago, when I was a kid growing up, we had a machine that reused water, I think it was just the wash water. It took a pretty good sized wash tub to hold the water. I doubt a normal machine or laundermat does that any more.

a 'sud saver'? I've heard that term from a friend who had one

 

[JethroB]

I remember washing machines with lint traps. Similar to lint traps on a dryers today. Wet goop.