Issues with kitchen sink waste

[Bobdude]

Hi, I am hoping there might be someone who does drainage on the forum, who can answer my question and perhaps give me a devis. (87160)  We have been having problems with slow emptying for a few weeks. (The cottage has been occupied fully since 2010) In front of the cottage is tout a l'egout, but the kitchen is right at the back. Installing a new waste pipe from the back to the front is probably out of the question, considering the floor is solid stone. The kitchen sink drain was in situ when we bought the house, back in 2006, and we just installed a new sink to the existing drain. Yesterday, in the pouring rain, we excavated behind the cottage to locate the waste pipe underground, with a view to unblocking it, having used a 5m long pipe unblocker to no avail. To our horror, we found that the old waste pipe just went into the ground behind the cottage, and ended there! It had been covered over with some sort of metal wire brackets and been covered with some sort of gauze, presumably to prevent blockage from silt or mud. My question is, is there some sort of drain that we could dig out at the back, something like a fosse septique I suppose, but just for the kitchen sink waste?

[Harnser]

I don't know what fosse regulations apply in your area but when we had our last fosse inspection we were required to run the taps of each basin, sink shower and bath separately while the inspector listened to the water going into the fosse tous eaux. And flush each toilet separately too for the same reason to make sure all waste water is going into the fosse.

What about installing some sort of pump to pump the grey water round to the fosse - Saniflo shower tray pump ?

[DraytonBoy]

We have a Saniflo pump that pumps waste from our kitchen sink and dishwasher (at the front of the house) to the fosse at the back, apart from cleaning the pump reservoir every couple of years it's maintenance free.

[Bobdude]

Thank you very much for your replies. Sorry for the delay, as I had problems getting signed in to the forum again. I think my original posting can't have explained it too well, but we are already on 'tout a l’égout' which is mains drainage. But of course the drains are at the front of the house, and as the house is attached to others, there is no access from the back, where the kitchen sink is at the moment, to the front. Which means the waste pipe from the sink would have to go right through the house, which is a huge issue. Hence I am asking whether there might be some other solution to drain it out the back into the garden.

[DraytonBoy]

Legally no as the waste has to be dealt with properly.

What about a very small fosse in the back garden?

[alittlebitfrench]

Is there no bathroom nearby or even above the kitchen ? There must be a pipe somewhere you can connect to with a pump that leads into the main sewage.

You can pump upwards.

We decided to put our kitchen in the lounge (like you do) but there was no outflow. It was either digging into the floor or a pump. The piping goes in all sorts of angles to reach an outflow pipe. All the pipes are hidden.

You can have a fosse just for waste water ' fosse de traitement des eaux usées'. As far as I understand it is just a hole. Well it might be a bit more technical than that but it is not the same principle as a fosse that deals with sewage.

[Bobdude]

Yes, that crossed my mind too.

[Bobdude]

Unfortunately the bathroom is right at the front and goes straight into the mains drains. Even if we installed a pump, I can’t see where we might be able to run the pipes through the house, not without major disruption, as the floors are solid. We could look into it though.

[Chancer]

Up the wall, across the ceiling void and down at the front either Inside or outside to the T à L.

[alittlebitfrench]

Like Chancer said....but I think I would prefer to find an internal outlet pipe in the house rather than trying to find the external mains sewage pipe. Are there no bathrooms or toilets upstairs ? I.e through the roof and then to a wet room.

Or, around the house like DB said. (I guess you would need to bury the pipes.

If the rain water from the gutters goes to the mains sewage can't you use them ?????

[Harnser]

"If the rain water from the gutters goes to the mains sewage can't you use them ????? "

A surface water drain must not discharge into a foul water drain.

[alittlebitfrench]

[quote user="Harnser"]"If the rain water from the gutters goes to the mains sewage can't you use them ????? "

A surface water drain must not discharge into a foul water drain.[/quote]

After writing that I had to pop out in car and and on our street I am sure that some gutters are connected to the mains sewage that goes underneath our street. Well they go into the ground street side.

[DraytonBoy]

We installed our pump when we renovated the house so cut a small (50mm) channel in the floor and re-tiled, the biggest issue was getting a decent fall as the distance is 10m from sink to 100mm mains waste pipe which then goes into the fosse.

[woolybanana]

Would it be possible to runa waste pipe along the walls to the other side of the house and box it in?

[Chancer]

[quote user="Harnser"]"If the rain water from the gutters goes to the mains sewage can't you use them ????? " A surface water drain must not discharge into a foul water drain.[/quote]

 

All the gutters from my street are connected into the sewage drain as is all the surface water drainage from the road so I was not overly concerned when I re-arranged all my gutters.

If where you live the surface water goes in a seperate run off sewer and is untreated then connecting a sink to it is not the best form but when you look at the trottoirs around here that have open gulleys connecting the supposedly surface water drains to the sewer and see the amount of Richard III's, toilet paper, condoms and sausages being sent to the seaside then a bit of sink water would freshen things up no end.

 

The restaurant that was beside me would wait till late at night and then pump out the waste from their cellar into the (then) open gulley removing the discharge pipe as soon as it was done.

[Bobdude]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Would it be possible to runa waste pipe along the walls to the other side of the house and box it in?[/quote]

I don’t think so. It’s around an 8m run fromback to front, and apart from being unsightly, I wouldn’t imagine it would be possible to get a sufficient slope on the pipe.

[alittlebitfrench]

You don't need a slope with a pump. It will shoot the water up vertically in a pipe to your roof space as Chancer described. That is the whole point of a pump. Ours runs a good six metres up and down, through walls and around angles.

If the pipe is in one corner of the kitchen running vertically up the kitchen wall you can box it in there.

I'm not sure what DB was describing in terms creating a slope with his pump installation.

I do think through that running it around the walls as wooly described would look pig ugly.

In terms of cost, a pump would be much cheaper than a fosse.

I think though (for best practice) a pump should be on its own circuit which is the tricky bit.

[Chancer]

Yeahbutnobutyeah.

 

Once you have pumped upwards to say the ceiling void then you need enough depth for the waste to fall in the normal manner.

 

Whilst most people including trades in their ignorance use 1/40 for all drainage it is only correct for a 4" or 4 1/2" pipe, to get the corect velocity of between 270 and 330 fpm requires agreaterr fall the smaller the pipe, the correct fall for a 32 or 40mm waste pipe cannot often be achieved in the depth of celing joists except for short distances, better to go up a pipe size.

 

 

[alittlebitfrench]

Well yeahbutnobutyeah

The pump is just for a kitchen sink and a dishwasher. As long as you scrape your plates and and have a grill on your sink outflow then you will be just shooting up water.

But I see your point. I think. The horizontal pipe should be bigger than the vertical pipe it feeds into ??? Our is not.

[woolybanana]

Albf, not pig ugly if boxed in properly, decent bit of wainscoting, could look ok, up to say waist high.

[Bobdude]

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]You don't need a slope with a pump. It will shoot the water up vertically in a pipe to your roof space as Chancer described. That is the whole point of a pump. Ours runs a good six metres up and down, through walls and around angles.

If the pipe is in one corner of the kitchen running vertically up the kitchen wall you can box it in there.

I'm not sure what DB was describing in terms creating a slope with his pump installation.

I do think through that running it around the walls as wooly described would look pig ugly.

In terms of cost, a pump would be much cheaper than a fosse.

I think though (for best practice) a pump should be on its own circuit which is the tricky bit.[/quote]

On t’s own circuit as far as the mains drain connection or on it’s own circuit as far as the upstairs bathroom, which is on the 1st floor, right at the front, then connected perhaps to one of the pipes in the bathroom?

[Chancer]

I fitted a sanibroyeur to my pied à terre in the UK, one of the options was an up n over outlet but I was concerned about solids remaining in the vertical leg during a prolonged absence,  I needed to do some testing so I rigged the thing up in the garden with a 3m high vertical stack and a right angle bend, it looked like a periscope.

 

I filled the cuvette in the normal way à l'abris des regards indiscrètes carefully carried it outside, connected the garden hose pipe, the electric and the periscope without having checked which way it was aiming.

 

I pressed the button while sheltering under a  golf umbrella, I didnt need it for I had massively underestimated the power of the thing, the shredded waste cleared my garden, went across the public footpath and touched down in a neighbours garden [:-))] as luck would have it  I could not have aimed it with better precision [6]

[alittlebitfrench]

@ bobdude.

I meant on its own electrical circuit....i.e, like your dishwasher/cooker.

I am not sure it is a good idea to plug it into any old socket. If the circuit trips then so does the pump.

Maybe other will have a better idea in this respect. Ours has its own direct ligne to the fuse box/tableaux.

[DraytonBoy]

The product info from Saniflo states that the pipes from the pump to the fosse need a decent fall (1.100 minimum) when used horizontally.

[alittlebitfrench]

Ours is not a Saniflow pump. It was sourced by our plumber in relation to the distance the water needed to be pumped.....which is the key point. I don't know what make it is without finding the manual. It was about 700 euros I think. But cheaper than a new floor had we dug down.

The pump (quite small) sits under the sink in the cabinet. The pipe runs horizontally (5 metres all hidden) behind all cabinets. Then through a wall. The piping then turns up vertically 2 metres and horizontally again until it turns up again into the grenier. The piping then goes somewhere to an out flow pipe.

Brilliant piece of equipment for an old house because often when you buy houses the kitchen is in the wrong place. These allow you put the kitchen anywhere without major renovation.

Top ALBF tip.