There's much controversy about dumping the backwash into your septic system. I can tell you my neighbor has problems that we're fairly certain was caused by this.

Most water softeners want an airgap between the backwash and the drainage piping. You don't want to hard connect the discharge direct to your drain pipes.

 

Yes I said above I would be installing an air gap above the trap. My concern mainly at this point would be installing the sanitary tee into the existing vertical waste pipe.

I will add that this veritical section of drain pipe already has a wye fitting for a cleanout on it, but from what I have read I should NOT use a wye fitting downstream of a trap as it can siphon out the trap, hence the need for a sanitary tee instead. If I am wrong about this please let me know, as that would allow be to avoid having to cut the existing vertical pipe.

 

I send my brine into the yard. Not into septic. Been doing it for 25 years.


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The yard discharge is 100’ away from house. Nothing grows there.


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So maybe I should just go through the wall and discharge into my lower field (I'm on 18 acres). What size pipe are you running out through your house/outside?

 

I discharge into 4” corrugated pipe. The pipe thru the wall is 1-1/2” with a good pitch. It gets real cold in 49267 so I need to avoid freezing issues. I also have lots of acres so my discharge doesn’t affect anyone. The salt from the road treatment, which is in the hundreds of tons, far out weighs my 500 pounds of salt per year.


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I discharge into 4” corrugated pipe. The pipe thru the wall is 1-1/2” with a good pitch. It gets real cold in 49267 so I need to avoid freezing issues. I also have lots of acres so my discharge doesn’t affect anyone. The salt from the road treatment, which is in the hundreds of tons, far out weighs my 500 pounds of salt per year.


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Just curious why you transition from the 1-1/2" pipe to the 4" size? I am also in a colder climate (Northeast PA) so I would also be contending with freezing conditions in the winter.

 

Of course the correlated is buried.


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There is disagreement but I'm from the camp that says don't backwash into the septic system. I don't know enough about the plumbing code to know if there is a minimum riser length needed to prevent the possibility of the trap getting flushed out by the backwash. Any softener that I have dealt with says a physical air gap - I don't know what an "air gap fitting" is.

Does your perimeter drain go to a sump pump or discharge to daylight by natural slope? Either way, that would be my choice.

 

The perimeter drain is a perforated pipe buried underneath the crushed stone footing and transitions into a 4" sewer and drain pipe, and then daylights below the house.

 

Below the house seems odd and counterintuitive since the whole point is to draw water away from the foundation, but I've learned here that there are many practices in different areas that strike others as odd.

 

Its on the outside of the foundation walls in the crush stone. And yes the pipe discharges at a lower grade away from the house (gravity drained).

 

My corrugated pipe also serves as my drains connected to three downspouts. Been working good for 25 years.


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Septic folks do not allow that salt water to the septic in my area.