Having bought all the carbon credits or something, so he cornered the market on global warming. Bastard. He could have left some for us.
Past few days haven’t been so bad. Lots of sun, afternoon highs in the low forties. But the nights are bloody frigid and Thursday another stormy period is supposed to blow in.
Lesson learned on grey-water pipes: I think something isn’t designed right but I really don’t know what. Gunk – apparently a lot of gunk – has been settling in the underground part of the pipe, where the slope is pretty moderate. I’ve dug a lot of frozen gunk out of the end of the pipe, and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s frozen for a good deal of its length. Can’t predict it’ll thaw any time in the next three months.
Now that I know about it I can probably make a point of washing it out before next winter, but I’m surprised it happened at all. Sure, some stuff from dish washing, hair washing, clothes washing will bypass the screens and the trap (there was nothing in the trap), but I’ve never heard of a grey water pipe actually clogging. Maybe I need more of a slope? Bigger pipe? I’ve currently got an inch and a half, which I thought more than adequate
Don’t go bigger. Smaller drains will keep the waste running at higher velocities and help prevent accumulations of deposits. The prescriptive sizes in the codes are for multiple fixtures running at once, a situation that I doubt that you encounter. Keeping your grey water drains at 1.5″ is probably a good strategy. Making sure that you use sweeps and sanatary tees rather than tees and elbows is also important, anything to avoid sharp turns.
Modern plumbing uses p-traps but you might consider using a drum trap for your sink. Cleaning it out would be a regular maintenance item but you would keep all the crap out of your drain lines and waste system. You can probably kludge something together or perhaps look at grease traps as a good settling point.
R, I’ve heard of replacing drum traps with p-traps in old places during renovation, never the other way around though. If you don’t mind, could you elaborate on why it would be a better choice in this application? Thanks in advance!