I have a 1960 house near houston Tx with a traditional septic that functions well enough. The dishwasher, sink, and washing machine drain to a greywater "system". The back patio slab backs up to the wall by the kitchen and laundry. This makes it hard to know exactly what I've got. About 15-20' from the house there is a 2". Vertical PVC pipe rising in the grass. Since we moved in a year and a half ago our greywater has at least partially come out of this pipe and onto the yard. Not a big deal during the summer months, we just grow extra lush grass in that area and the cottonwood tree is very happy. Winter months it is a soggy soppy mess and getting worse.

My husband and a buddy excavated around this pipe and discovered a 4" horizontal pipe leading out into the yard that Is buried about 3' deep in our very very gumbo clay soil. We have a very high water table and 50+"rain/year. He used a snake and a hose and cleaned a bunch of 'sludge' (his term, I didn't see it) out of the pipe.

My question is this. Since the main pipe draining the greywater from the house is deep under a slab, can I crate another another more shallow leech-line coming off of the vertical clean out/overflow pipe? I would bury this in gravel, much closer to the surface. In addition, since I know grease kills leech fields, I was thinking of installing an under-sink grease trap at the kitchen sink.


Thoughts/ideas??? Other solutions? I have an acre or so going back to a pasture, a friend mentioned pumping it away?


We have soooo many projects on this house, I am not in the position to rip this all out and build it to code. I really need to fix what we have. From what we have discovered so far, the house has good bones, but the previous owners had lots of "friends" doing repairs with duct tape and zip ties.

 

None of what you suggested meets any modern codes of any kind.
Do what your suggesting around here and I'd be hit with a fine.

 

I live in a small municipality. I'm not concerned with fines, there are no inspectors or anything. If I hired someone to deal with this I would inevitable spend many thousands of dollars to upgrade this to an aerobic septic system. This would involve demolishing my back patio slab. Besides the fact that I don't have the money for that, hence the post on the DIY forum .

Of course I want to be safe- I have kids and pets that play in the yard. Right now there is a lot of greywater on the surface. That is what I would like to change. As far as codes go....not much in this house is up to any current code. Why start now?!

 

Is the pasture behind you higher or lower in elevation than the area where the grey water is currently accumulating ?

 

Extending the grey water leach line is always an option but you need to determine if spreading it out over a longer area will help - is it only wet where the drain line is? or is the whole area prone to stay wet?

FWIW, my washing machine drains out on the side of the hill which was legal when I installed that drain [more than 50' from any creek] 20+ yrs ago. I have a neighbor who has his wash water and kitchen sink hooked to a grey water system with a grease trap at the start of the leach line - approved by the local health dept inspector.

 

I don't know if there are codes for a gray water leach field so I have no clue if there are codes to be broken. Something to Google when I'm bored I suppose...

No, you really can't create a shallower leach line. Your system is likely gravity powered. Installing a new leach line buried more shallow would only see water when the other system backs up to that elevation. It's a hoakey Band-Aid fix at best.

Have you dug in other areas to find how the leach field was constructed? You mentioned a 4" pipe but what else was there? I really hope there was more to it than just a buried perforated pipe.

First, look at your water usage. Your system obviously has a limited capacity so cutting the amount you feed it is the first step. If you have an old fashioned vertical clothes washer get a modern water saving model. A modern water saving machine will let you do three loads with the same amount of water as one from an old machine. The same goes for the dishwasher. Modern high efficiency ones use considerably less water than older machines.

Also install a lint filter on the outlet of your clothes washer. Without a septic tank to catch the lint it will make it's way out into the leach field eventually clogging it. Organic fibers like cotton will very slowly decompose but synthetics might never decompose.

If you're head set on digging up the yard the first thing I would do is find some elevations. Since it's gravity powered anything you do outside must be lower than the drain lines in the home which could explain why your system is 3' underground. Burying it so deep in clay soil in a wet climate can make percolation difficult and slow.

 

Since you don't have any restrictive laws or inspectors, you can add whatever you want to the existing line as it exits from under the patio.

No matter what you do, the water has to be absorbed by the soil. The brute force method is to install two or three parallel leach lines where you have just one leach line now.

Surrounding the leach lines with gravel rather than just bury them in the dirt gives a little more volume (cubic inches, cubic feet) for water to rest outside the pipe where it can soak into the soil at its leisure. Some homeowners dig a big dry well to accumulate waste water while it soaks into the soil at its leisure. The purpose of a mound system is to provide a bed (the mound) where the water can permeate and sit until it soaks into the soil at its leisure. Mound systems have dosage pumps and holding tanks because only so much water can sit in the mound at any given time without forming a visible puddle nearby.

 

Vermont, the pasture is the same elevation. There is only a few inches of elevation on the entire property (2 acres).

 

Marksr- the only spot that Is wet is the vertical overflow outlet.

My neighbors washing machine drain comes out of her house and drains to a shallow depression on my property that runs to a ditch. It works well. Unfortunately, my washer is in the back of my house with no easy access to the ditch.

 

Pilot Dane- I have not dug around the yard to find exactly where/how much leech line there is. What we found was 3' deep in solid clay.

You say"Installing a new leach line buried more shallow would only see water when the other system backs up to that elevation". This is kind of what I need it to do. Right now the water just flows out the top of the vertical clean out pipe.

I do have an HE washer and a relatively new energy star dishwasher (probably 4-8 yrs old). I do cook all meals at home so use the kitchen more than most. That can't change. We don't pour any grease down the drain save what is on pans after they re scraped. That being said, we've only lived here 1.5 yrs and no telling what the previous owners did.