Water Softener Discharge Line

According to most plumbing codes a water softener drain line must not be connected directly to the household waste system.

Water softener discharge line.

Many of the home improvement stores sell big box water softeners and installation kits to get them connected. A softener drain line must not be connected directly to the waste system but must be emptied into a laundry tray floor drain or properly trapped special outlet preserving an air gap of at least two times the diameter of the drain line but in no case less than 1 1 2 above the top of the receptacle used. Those of us in the backflow industry would immediately identify this as a cross connection that must be protected by an air gap an adequate physical separation between the water softener and the sewer. Water softener discharge options it is a common knowledge that hard water can be an issue on both your dwelling place to you and to the entire family.

The industry standard is a polypropylene drain line that is rigid yet flexible. Connect the flex lines to the water supply pipes then into the back of the water softener unit as directed by the manufacturer. Homeowners are advised to take the following precautions to prevent impacts from brine discharge to their drinking water supply and their owts. In one sentence the installer directly connected the water softener drain line to the sewer.

Hard water is softened through eliminating the magnesium and calcium it contains. This is to prevent non potable water from flowing backwards possibly mixing and contaminating potable drinking water. When sears installed ours they water jetted a pvc pipe 10 deep into a narrow strip of soil next to the garage wall. The house side pipe to the outlet port.

Water softener discharge subsurface or surface within 200 feet of drilled bedrock driven or dug public wells or within 400 feet of gravel packed or gravel developed public wells. Drain line best practices on water softener service calls in minnesota we find a wide variety of drain line material being used. This causes two problems. When the water softener resin is backwashed two or three times a week concentrated brine enters the wastewater stream as a slug of 38 to 112 gallons each backwash cycle.

One problem is that the septic tank discharges solids into the drainfield which can cause the soil to plug and the drainfield to fail.