Need help fixing my waste water drain pipes.

BornForDying

A few years ago I took ownership of my grandmother's house. For many years, the "man of the house" did repair work which usually goes like we all expect it to.

Anyway, I'm learning that my plumbing needs some alterations, and I'd like some advice before proceeding.

The particular section in question recieves water from the kitchen sink, and a sump pump which handles water from the washer, and basement sink.

I understand that sump pump connection to waste water drain is a no-no, so I'd like to fix that.

I installed the AAV in an attempt to get the kitchen sink to stop gurgling when the sump pump runs, although I now suspect the sound may be from water backing up the sink drain.

I'm thinking I'll have to enlarge the hole in the foundation wall, replace the cast iron T with PVC, and enlarge the line going toward the washer.

Washer gets an open pipe with a trap.
Can I still utilize the AAV, or should I install an entire vent? I believe the cast iron pipe going to the second floor is vented because the 2nd floor fixtures don't make any noise.

In going to install a new basement sink eventually. That gets it's own pump? How does that attach to the drain piping?

Jamie Hall

Check with your local code folks, but in most places if a sump pump is serving only waste water -- no roof leaders, no building drains, etc. -- it can connect to the sewer system. In fact, where else is it going to go? However -- it has to have an air gap or vacuum breaker. The hard connection which I think I see in one of the photos is a no-no -- but easy enough to fix (I'd use a vacuum breaker, if your authority having jurisdiction permits).

The AAV is OK -- nothing may completely cure the gurgling.

delta T

The pump can connect to the sewer as long as it is serving fixture drains. Where most jurisdictions don't want sump pumps connecting to the sewer is when it is serving a perimeter drain or other ground water collection source.

One of the reasons for this became very evident to me back in September of 2013 when I was living in Boulder, CO. We had a MASSIVE flood. Don't know if it made national news or not, but it was considered to be a 500 year event. There were parts of town not even close to the flood plain that were 4' underwater. Now a very common (though not legal) practice was to put perimeter drain sumps into the sewer. I lost quite a few bids for installing pumps because I insisted that they had to be daylighted outside. This was considered to be a big part of the reason as to why the sewer treatment plant was overwhelmed and they had no option but to just let the water flow through and raw sewage dump into the creek.

I have a friend who worked in the plant and he told me that the plant receives around 13 million gallons on a typical day. the plant is rated to receive 25 million gallons per day. There is a monitoring gauge that tells them how much they are receiving that will read up to 50 million gallons per day. The gauge was pegged. No one has any Idea how much water flowed through the system other than it was more than 50 million gallons per day for three days. This was blamed in large part on the connection of groundwater pumps to the sewer system and resulted in millions of dollars of damage to the plant and the sewer infrastructure.

As a note to your problem, does your pump have a check valve installed?