Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Washer Drain Workaround

 The main sewer pipe is compromised.  We tried to snake it out, and it is very gunky.  I'm kind of bummed out about this, but not surprised.  These pipes have been in the ground since 1978, so 42 years...  That's a lot of shit, LOL!, and other stuff too...  So, we need a work around.  This affects the Laundry Room, and the Study Bathroom.  We have two other bathrooms, so the Study Bathroom isn't such a problem, but the Laundry Room is necessary.  Then the only thing in the Laundry Room that has been compromised is the Washing Machine Drain.  The fresh water supply, and the electricity work fine.  So, I needed to find a way to drain the Washing Machine without using the sewer pipe.

So, I needed a way to adapt to the Washing Machine drain hose.  It is a specialized hose, and I started looking for some sort of coupler so I could adapt the Washing Machine drain hose to a garden hose.  Well, didn't find much there.  Then I had an idea that I would use a compression fitting to adapt the Washing Machine drain hose to a similar size hose.  I did find some compression fittings that were meant for gas lines, and they were very expensive.  Also the gas line hose was very expensive.  OK, that's out.  Finally I found some tubing that is meant to be drain hose for landscaping.

The Washing Machine drain hose is 1.25 inches outside diameter.  It has a nice long cylindrical flat on the end of it so that it can interface with the drain pipe in the house that goes down to the sewer pipe.  I figured that we can take advantage of this in our impromptu drain setup.  So, I went searching for tubing with a 1.25 inch inside diameter.  I found a lot of relatively expensive types of tubing that had a 1.25 inch inside diameter.  But as I kept digging I found some tubing called drain tubing.  Drain tubing is a low pressure, high flow tubing used to drain things.  Uh, Big Duh!  With a little more digging I found some of this drain tubing that had a 1.25 inch inside diameter, and it it was relatively inexpensive at $1.25 per foot.  I figured I only needed to add a hose clamp to link the two tubes together.  Well, once I got the drain tubing, and tried it, there was an interference fit.  The new drain tubing fit the Washing Machine drain perfectly, no hose clamp required.  So, then I ran the drain tubing through the garage, and down the driveway to the alley.  It worked perfectly!  Whoo Hoo!