Easier water changes - how to plumb into house drain.

[Subw00er]

To make 20g water changes a lot easier and more streamlined, I want to hard plumb a line from my tank up to a 1" drain line in my basement, which is 4' above my tank (the 1" drain line is wye'd into my house's standard 2" drain line, and I currently use it for ro/di waste water). I have a 3/4" barbed line coming off of a sicce pump which I'll submerge in the tank or sump.

I was thinking of using the barbed 3/4" fitting off of the pump with flex hose up to a barbed 3/4"-1"pvc adapter. Then using a flapper type valve on the way up to the 1" drain. I guess for sewer gasses I should install a J-bend type pipe near the drain line. For maximum safety I was also thinking of installing a ball valve somewhere too just to make sure that I dont get sewer back-flow into the tank (I'd just open it right before a waterchange). Here are my questions:

1. Is the ball valve overkill with the Jbend and flapper, or is the flapper a waste?
2. Where are the best places inline to put the flapper, valve and Jbend?
3. Do they make 1" jbends, or should I make one out of 1" pvc pipe (I have experience bending it, or I can use a few right angle adapters).
4. Is this whole idea junk?! I do have a basement slop sink I could pipe over to and avoid a lot of risk, but it uses a sump pump to push the water up into the drain and I dont like the idea of all of that salt water sitting on the sump pump - that sump pump is one of those that are housed in a black container that fills up and sits next to the slop sink.

Are there any references to people who have done this before? It seems like a simple thing, but I'm guessing I'd be breaking some sort of code if I didn't do it properly, and I certainly dont want sewage backing into my tank!

 

[Pittsburgh]

I think the idea is pretty much identical to that of the washing machine dedicated drain. The one where you can just stick the waste hose right into the drain and not worry for it to overflow or flow back.

 

[shifty51008]

Mine does that, my basement didnt have a floor drain so it was really my only option.

On my return pump i have it going to the tank and also t'ed off going to a manifold. Off the manifold i have a ball valve that goes to my drain. Basically all i have to do when i get ready to do a water change is open the ball valve and the return pumps it to the drain.

 

[Savant]

I drilled a hole through the sill above the foundation and ran the drain line outside to the gravel bed under my deck. Filled the gap with spray foam GTG. No worries for septic or corrosion. Only thing that might cause an issue is if I have to do multiple 50g wc in a short period of time but that would prob hurt my septic way more than my grass and I hate cutting the grass anyways...lol.

105g DT

 

[Subw00er]

Yah I dont want to just run it outside..

shifty, thats not a bad idea, but if I did that I'd only be doing like 6g water changes on a 90g tank before the pump ran dry. My return partition is pretty small..

 

[Timber77]

I might be just going to simple here but a toms aqualifter pump for like $20 will take the water up for you its like 3.5 gph and it can even run dry without hurting the pump

i use 2 of them when i do water changes i just run them both on the same timer for 2 hours and it changes out roughly 7 gallons of water. they can pump very far and fairly high up since its just icemaker line they have the pressure to go up to your first floor (probably less than 3.5 gph but you could use longer timer or multiple toms pumps)

 

[Subw00er]

I need to change about 20g so that would take too long!

What I ended up doing was taking a decent sized Sicce pump and plumbing it into my drain system. I used a BRS one way check valve (to stop back flow), and made a U bend (p trap) out of pvc (to stop gasses) and also used a valve right at the point it joins to the house plumbing (just to be absolutely sure it doesnt back flow, ever). It works great!

The pump goes in my first chamber of my sump, which is only about 10g, but I wanted a 15-20g water change, so I also made a setup where a piece of tubing goes from the first to third chamber. I added a T in the middle of the tubing and a ball valve above the T so I can suck up water past the T and shut the valve, thereby creating a siphon between the two chambers, and when I turn the pump on, it draws from both chambers!

To pump water back in, I just use a little MJ1200, which does a good enough job for now. It would be nice to have something a little faster though.

So, the net result is that water changes are REALLY easy now!

 

[S14Swap240sx]

What I ended up doing was taking a decent sized Sicce pump and plumbing it into my drain system. I used a BRS one way check valve (to stop back flow), and made a U bend (p trap) out of pvc (to stop gasses) and also used a valve right at the point it joins to the house plumbing (just to be absolutely sure it doesnt back flow, ever). It works great!

I would verify with a plumber that their is a proper vent for that ptrap downstream somewhere.. a p trap alone is not suitable to stop those gases from leaching out.. pretty serious about this I have been warned when trying to add a sink to my garage with drain that in my specific case, even tho I was tieing into the washer machine on the other side of the wall I would need a ptrap vent..

 

[Subw00er]

I have a hard stop at the ball valve so nothing will back flow into the trap area.

 

[Timber77]

If you put it on a timer or controller what does it matter how long it takes? can even do smaller daily changes... Or call a plumber, wouldnt risk having sewer gas or backup when such a simple solution solves the problem with zero risk.