Condensate Neutralizer

Paul Cooke

How effective are condenstate neutralizers?

Would you feel OK about sending condensate down an old CI floor drain in a basement that was installed in 1927? Or would you be concerned about damage to the cast iron over time?

Thanks.

-Paul

[Deleted User]

Guaranteed...

You will rot the bottom of the trap out in a very short time. The pH of condensate is around 5. It WILL eat cast iron, steel, copper and cement.

No trap, no sewer gas seal, KABOOM... no house:-(

Get a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with crushed limestone or marble, and dose it with copper sulphate if tree roots are a problem.

We burn a hole though the side of the bucket, near the top for a water overflow, and run the inlet to the bottom of the bucket prior to filling with stone. This allows you to pipe the waste to the floor drain, and gives good contact time for the fluid. The fluid has to percolate up through the stone. The connection through the wall of the bucket is done with a PVC male adapter screwed into a female adapter through the wal of the bucket with teflon tape filling the minor gap between the buckets rounded surface and the adapters flat surfaces.

$25 to 30 bucks invested, and well worth the time and money spent. Nothing worse than running a cable into a drain and pulling back mud...


Great seeing you in Portland this spring Paul...

ME

Paul Cooke

Another Solution

Thanks, Mark, for the detailed response. We did have a good time at that Portland event.

I'm thinking I might just use a small condensate pump and run it out the side of the basement wall and onto the ground. They allow that here.

The cast iron DWV on this old 1927 house is awesome. They ran 2" up to the kitchen sink. Most of the older homes I've seen here in Oregon have inch and a half drains to the kitchen sink. (There's also an old half inch galv trap primer line going to the basement floor drain!)

Matt_21

you may have a problem

in the winter with the condensate freezing in the tube and backing up into the mechanical room. i would go with mark's idea or heat transfer products makes a fairly inexpensive neutralizer for the munchkin which you could use.

hr

That could be

a lot of water to pump outside, I like the floor drain with the neautralizer idea better, also. Less prone to breakdowns

hot rod

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Paul Cooke

Freezing

Hadn't thought about the freezing issue. We don't always get real cold here, but every once in awhile, look out.

So. I guess it's back to the neutralizer plan.

Thanks for all the great input.