Floor Drain

[Suzie68]

Has anyone installed a freestanding floor drain? What choices are there? Can I make it a "drain field"?
I'm thinking of cutting a 2'x2' square, digging down 2-3' pouring sides, the filling the bottom with gravel to allow draining what other suggestions are there?

 

[Kevin54]

If I am reading what you are asking, you want to drain down under your slab and not out somewhere. Correct? If it is in a garage, I don't think you are allowed to by code.

 

[t. jones]

Are you planning to use your garage as a car wash? Otherwise yes it will work.
Thanx Trevor

 

[Suzie68]

More or less just looking for an area for melted snow and stuff to drain

 

[nehog]

Won't meet code without a 'grease trap' as a minimum. Even that may not meet code. Building inspector told me to forget a drain if I wanted to avoid problems!

 

[kbs2244]

All kinds of questions.
Local code being the big one.

They may have a big question over “ just winter slop” draining off and what they can allow.
They have to think of the worse case guy dumping oil change waste all day.

What you have designed will work, if allowed.

 

[2000bonny]

Most zoning and code inspectors will not allow it, unless its desiginated to a holding tank and or city sewer. I worked at a shop in town for a while, and I am always very precautious and drain all my antifreeze into a container and dump it into a barrel. Now one day I saw antifreeze leaking from a car into the floor drains. I yelled at the mechanic hey what the heck you doing? That drains into the city sewer/waste treatment facilities. He said yea duh! I told him he can't do that! He just said don't worry, the antifreeze will get diluted on its way there lol. It really pissed me off. Its people like that, that make the codes stricter for the honest ones. I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! CITY PEOPLE DRINK THAT WATER! I guarentee that not all of the antifreeze is 100% cleaned out of the waste. It may not hurt people, but maybe sooner or later it will cuz of the increasing number of shops that are doing it. It just makes me mad!
Craig

 

[fusionspecialists]

That drains into the city sewer/waste treatment facilities. He said yea duh! I told him he can't do that! He just said don't worry, the antifreeze will get diluted on its way there lol. It really pissed me off. Its people like that, that make the codes stricter for the honest ones. I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! CITY PEOPLE DRINK THAT WATER!

Definitely not unless you're in Orange County, CA. Wastewater treatment plants do not produce drinkable water. The water going down the drain may end up watering plants or putting out fires.

 

[Kevin54]

He just said don't worry, the antifreeze will get diluted on its way there lol. It really pissed me off. Its people like that, that make the codes stricter for the honest ones. I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! CITY PEOPLE DRINK THAT WATER! I guarantee that not all of the antifreeze is 100% cleaned out of the waste.

There was a big debate on this some time back. In the country it is a huge No-no putting Anti-freeze into a septic system where it can get back into the ground water. In cities, the water treatment plants are set up to remove anti-freeze. Some have even called about anti-freeze disposal and city officials told them to pour it down the drain or toilet. Would I do it myself? No. I'm to the point that I rarely drink water anymore as you don't know what is good and what is bad. Just like my place in the country. When we moved here 17 years ago, we had iron in our water. For those that don't have iron, you don't know what you are missing. One day with the water softener unhooked and the stools, sinks, and laundry if washed turns a bright orange. Anyways, over the last couple of years they have been building houses all around us up and down the road that is 2 miles long and one farmer put in a deep well for farm irrigation. We now have sulphur water. I have to change the whole house filter every two weeks.
So things do get into the water systems. Businesses have huge parking lots and thousands of cars that have oil and anti-freeze leaks. When it rains it goes into the storm seers. Where does it go after that? If none of it gets treated, it eventually gets right back into the underground aquifers.

 

[fusionspecialists]

True, all the stuff that goes down stormdrains doesn't get treated and ends up somewhere and indirectly recharges the aquifer. In my Orange County example, the treated wastewater (cleaned at a state of the art plant not comparable to others around the country), the water is distributed indirectly to the aquifer -- not directly to your kitchen faucet.

I was just pointing out that in 2000bonny's post, he did state that the drain goes to the sewer and no, people don't drink that even after treatment.

I've heard the recommendation to flush antifreeze down the toilet, too.

 

[srmofo]

It gets poured in the drains around here also. WEve asked the city several times about this thinking they were just too lazy to do their jobs and the answer is always the same

To the OP: what the city doesnt know wont hurt you, just make sure they dont find out. All the soil around my house is clay though, at least after about 1.5 ft down. So I could imagine if I did something like that my garage would lift up and float away,lol. If it were mine, I would go way deeper and fill partly with sand,gravel mix

 

[Snap50]

These are reasons to pitch the slab out the door and don't install drains.

 

[iagsxr]

Just talked w/a guy today about doing something like that in one of my buildings. We decided that no way could it be deemed legal. But if I were going to build one;

Rather than a 2x2 hole that takes the water directly I would make it 2x4 w/a partition wall in it. One 2x2 section would be 2ft. deep w/a cement bottom. Tube through the partition wall say 6" from the top into the deeper graveled section. You have to have a pit to catch solids or your gravel will plug up sooner than you'd think. Put a removable diamond plate cover on the gravel section for maintanence.

You need to go deep enough w/the gravel pit to be below the frost line.

Keep in mind what your water table height is. It discussed in my building my drain might become a fountain if we went too deep due to it's particular location.