rain pipe and washer drain to same place?
Just wondering if this is common… our washer/dryer is in a small added on room off the ground floor kitchen in the back of our garden duplex. The washer drains into a pipe behind it that has another large pipe running into it too. I have discovered I can’t do laundry when it rains because…
Just wondering if this is common…
our washer/dryer is in a small added on room off the ground floor kitchen in the back of our garden duplex. The washer drains into a pipe behind it that has another large pipe running into it too. I have discovered I can’t do laundry when it rains because it looks like the 2nd pipe is the drain pipe from the roof and lots of water rushes through it when it rains. If I run the washer and it drains, it is too much water for the pipe too handle. Where does that water go? Into the sewer? The other reason I think it is the rain pipe from the roof is that is runs down along what used to be the outside of the building before the little washer room was built.
Thanks
I am not a plumber or anything but it seems to me that with run off from the roof there is a a lot of debris carried along, some of it light and organic (like leaves) and some heavier and non-degradable (like bits of tar and sand).
It is possible that the roof runoff has created a clog in the pipe somewhere past where the laundry flushes down, but before the rest of the house. If it was added as an addition there maybe some kind of catch that is meant to be cleaned just for this purpose (there is one in my home, tho I have never tried to open it).
If so, you might look for a an elbow somewhere near where the pipe comes in from the rain drain with a cap on it that can be opened for cleaning. Or failing that you could try to clear it with a snake or chemicals (be careful not to ruin the old pipes tho).
Another possible partial solution (if you are a gardener) would be to capture some of the rainwater in a tank and use it for watering. But a 1/2 of rain will fill a 40 gallon tank very quickly.
Here’s the system I’ve been looking at:
http://www.sprucecreekrainsaver.com/
Most of New York has combined sewers, which means the sanitary discharge (household flushing and draining) ends up in the same pipes as stormwater run-off (gutters). This is a big problem because when it rains really hard and the City’s infrastructure gets overloaded, the excess gets dumped directly into our waterways. So, yes, raw sewage gets pumped into the rivers and canals. The pipes that dump are called Combined Sewer Overflows — there are 494 of them in New York City.
yep, gutters often go right into your main drain line, all the places i’ve lived in brooklyn are set up like that. not sure what you can do except wait for the rain to stop!