Dumping at Home
I considered putting this on the multi-page Dump Station Observations topic, but maybe I’ll just let that sleeping dog lie.
You guys have actually been a source of amusement and encouragement to me for the past week or so, as I’ve been fixing a problem with my septic system at home. Reading that topic has made me not hate so much the obvious downside of sewer work, and appreciate even more what I’m going to end up with after fixing and improving my home system.
So......I decided what the heck, I’m just going to “pollute” this topic with some pictures of my work. Throw a bunch of “stuff” up against the wall and see what sticks. Hopefully, things won’t get too stinky in the process. :W
There’s a seven year back-story that goes with this, and I’ll try to tell that as briefly as possible.
- In 2013 we tore down our garage. A two car, flat roof, former open carport monstrosity on a bad foundation. This was taken the day I started tearing it down, and you can see just a bit of my camper sitting downhill on an asphalt pad.
The new garage has a new bay big enough to put my truck with the camper on it inside, but because of the hillside, the floor of this new RV bay is seven feet lower than where the cars park. Here’s a picture of what we ended up with, and if you look closely, you can see a white PVC pipe sticking up just off the concrete apron near the tree.
That’s my RV dump station, and the reason it’s there is because the septic tank behind the garage was only “downhill” from the house and upper bay. The RV bay was lower than the septic tank, and as we all know, stuff won’t flow uphill. I’ve used this dump station many times over the past seven years. It’s not ideal because the apron isn’t level, but it works much better than nothing at all.
- About three years ago, we started having some issues with the septic tank, and it became apparent that we needed to replace it. Rather than installing the new tank in the same place, we put it further downhill. Now, the new tank is lower than the RV bay. Ever since then, Ive wished I had a dump station that I could use from the RV bay, but there wasn’t any way to get the stinky slinky over to the new tank, that was literally less than 20 ft away.
- About a year ago, I discovered that there was a problem with the sewer pipe going into the new tank. The hole dug for the new tank was pretty big and deep, and there was a lot of associated digging between the tank and the house to hook it up. The ground settled a lot around the tank, and caused a Y joint about three feet uphill from the tank to settle and break. The only indication I had that anything was wrong was how the inlet pipe looked inside the tank. It appeared to be pointing slightly up instead of being almost level, and I knew it didn’t look like that when it was installed. It wasn’t causing any backups, but I knew there had to be a low spot in the line that needed to be fixed, and I confirmed that with a wireless borescope camera.
This picture was taken when the new tank was installed, and the Y joint at the feet of the guy bending over is what settled. It didn’t actually break, it pulled a glue joint apart so that it was open on the bottom.
- Since I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands this year :( I’ve been able to brainstorm about how I could make a new dump station along with this repair that I knew needed to get done. The first thing I did was put a door in the garage wall behind where my camper sits. This isn’t a primary entry/exit door, so I left the cinder block wall below it.
Then I bought a 5” wet diamond core drill and an adapter so I could use it with my 1/2” drill, and cut a hole in the cinder blocks below the door opening. Then I mortared in a short pass-through pipe with a cap on the outside.
Then I started the fun part about the same time the Dump Station Observations topic showed up. I hired a guy to work with me digging the hole, and got the pipe exposed.
We had to cut about 3” off of the pipe going into the tank, and pull it back up so that it had the right slope into the tank, and then rebuild the line going to the house with rigid connections. That changed the relationship of the Y fitting to the line coming from under the garage just enough that I wasn’t going to be able to get perfect alignment without digging up a lot more of that line than I wanted to. I also wanted to insert another Y in that line so I could have a “clean out” nearby. We exposed a few more feet of the garage sewer line and cut it back to minimize the misalignment, then reconnected it using two rubber Fernco fittings. That may not be strictly to code, but considering what that part of the system is for I’m not going to loose sleep over it. Found my phone line, too. :M
To (hopefully) prevent any more settling, I poured some concrete under the new lines in three spots. The concrete is on undisturbed soil, so it “shouldn’t” sink.
I’ll be filling the hole in today, taking more care than the tank installers did. I’ll cut the new dump station pipe down once the grade is set around it.
So........all that is to say: I sure am glad I won’t have an audience while I’m dumping at home! :W
Just kidding of course. Feel free to come watch anytime!
:):)
You guys have actually been a source of amusement and encouragement to me for the past week or so, as I’ve been fixing a problem with my septic system at home. Reading that topic has made me not hate so much the obvious downside of sewer work, and appreciate even more what I’m going to end up with after fixing and improving my home system.
So......I decided what the heck, I’m just going to “pollute” this topic with some pictures of my work. Throw a bunch of “stuff” up against the wall and see what sticks. Hopefully, things won’t get too stinky in the process. :W
There’s a seven year back-story that goes with this, and I’ll try to tell that as briefly as possible.
- In 2013 we tore down our garage. A two car, flat roof, former open carport monstrosity on a bad foundation. This was taken the day I started tearing it down, and you can see just a bit of my camper sitting downhill on an asphalt pad.
The new garage has a new bay big enough to put my truck with the camper on it inside, but because of the hillside, the floor of this new RV bay is seven feet lower than where the cars park. Here’s a picture of what we ended up with, and if you look closely, you can see a white PVC pipe sticking up just off the concrete apron near the tree.
That’s my RV dump station, and the reason it’s there is because the septic tank behind the garage was only “downhill” from the house and upper bay. The RV bay was lower than the septic tank, and as we all know, stuff won’t flow uphill. I’ve used this dump station many times over the past seven years. It’s not ideal because the apron isn’t level, but it works much better than nothing at all.
- About three years ago, we started having some issues with the septic tank, and it became apparent that we needed to replace it. Rather than installing the new tank in the same place, we put it further downhill. Now, the new tank is lower than the RV bay. Ever since then, Ive wished I had a dump station that I could use from the RV bay, but there wasn’t any way to get the stinky slinky over to the new tank, that was literally less than 20 ft away.
- About a year ago, I discovered that there was a problem with the sewer pipe going into the new tank. The hole dug for the new tank was pretty big and deep, and there was a lot of associated digging between the tank and the house to hook it up. The ground settled a lot around the tank, and caused a Y joint about three feet uphill from the tank to settle and break. The only indication I had that anything was wrong was how the inlet pipe looked inside the tank. It appeared to be pointing slightly up instead of being almost level, and I knew it didn’t look like that when it was installed. It wasn’t causing any backups, but I knew there had to be a low spot in the line that needed to be fixed, and I confirmed that with a wireless borescope camera.
This picture was taken when the new tank was installed, and the Y joint at the feet of the guy bending over is what settled. It didn’t actually break, it pulled a glue joint apart so that it was open on the bottom.
- Since I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands this year :( I’ve been able to brainstorm about how I could make a new dump station along with this repair that I knew needed to get done. The first thing I did was put a door in the garage wall behind where my camper sits. This isn’t a primary entry/exit door, so I left the cinder block wall below it.
Then I bought a 5” wet diamond core drill and an adapter so I could use it with my 1/2” drill, and cut a hole in the cinder blocks below the door opening. Then I mortared in a short pass-through pipe with a cap on the outside.
Then I started the fun part about the same time the Dump Station Observations topic showed up. I hired a guy to work with me digging the hole, and got the pipe exposed.
We had to cut about 3” off of the pipe going into the tank, and pull it back up so that it had the right slope into the tank, and then rebuild the line going to the house with rigid connections. That changed the relationship of the Y fitting to the line coming from under the garage just enough that I wasn’t going to be able to get perfect alignment without digging up a lot more of that line than I wanted to. I also wanted to insert another Y in that line so I could have a “clean out” nearby. We exposed a few more feet of the garage sewer line and cut it back to minimize the misalignment, then reconnected it using two rubber Fernco fittings. That may not be strictly to code, but considering what that part of the system is for I’m not going to loose sleep over it. Found my phone line, too. :M
To (hopefully) prevent any more settling, I poured some concrete under the new lines in three spots. The concrete is on undisturbed soil, so it “shouldn’t” sink.
I’ll be filling the hole in today, taking more care than the tank installers did. I’ll cut the new dump station pipe down once the grade is set around it.
So........all that is to say: I sure am glad I won’t have an audience while I’m dumping at home! :W
Just kidding of course. Feel free to come watch anytime!
:):)
