I did a wash im my garage today...

David Fermani said:
Tell me more:

Do you have well water with septic field or city water with sewer?

If septic, then aren't you just poisoning your well possibly?
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Not septic, city water, city sewer. If septic, I would think you just run the drain with the other drains that are running from the house, basement, etc.



The legality should not be a problem, but the retrofit ( pitch of floor, and the pita of digging the trench in concrete ) would deter me.



To be honest, even with the drain I now use QEW just because it does as good a job as the hose does. and a lot less things get wet in the garage :)
 
Don't use QEW much because I prefer washing the "normal" way.

When I do need it though, it does a nice job. Since it's summer here now, it's too hot and sunny to wash outside.
 
White95Max said:
Shumax - I'm pretty sure that would be highly illegal. That wastewater from your garage would drain straight through into the groundwater. Your intention may be solely to use the drain to get rid of water from washing your car, but the lawmakers know that people would be tempted to dump all kinds of things down their drains. Nobody would see it, so people would always feel that they could get away with it.

There IS a way of tracing groundwater contamination, so if a problem was discovered, the source could be pinpointed, and massive fines would surely result. We had to do this exercise several times in my hydrology class.

How much is a large city's water supply worth?
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Paul, I understand the ramifications, trust me. I am not real concerned about the pollution aspect; however, as a reparian owner of subjacent water rights, anyone in the vicinity can make a claim against me for it. Then again, other than the salt and dirt from my car, that's all that would be going down the drain anyway. Which, by the way, already is happening, albeit it in a slight slower fashion, when I wash my car outside.



I'd, if I was going to do it, be more concerned with the water freezing under the concrete pad in the winter and cracking my garage floor.
 
David Fermani said:
It's easy to drill a hole, but not so easy to have the water go into it with no pitch on the floor?
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Not a problem in my case, I already have a 4:8" pitch from front to rear and 3:6" from side to side.
 
White95Max said:
Setec, in this case, the drain would just be an opening for liquids to run down through the ground and directly into the groundwater. Obviously if this were legal, it would just be encouraging the dumping of chemicals and other crap into the water supply.



If the drain is connected to the sanitary storm sewer, that's a different story. All kinds of chemicals regularly come into the sewage treatment plant.
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That may br true in your area, but it isn't here, or in Cleveland, Ohio. The water would run into the storm, sanitary, sewer. Again, on the premise it were just the by products of a car wash, who cares?



I realize that not everyone would be as honest; thus the reason we can't do it. I still say there should be a way to have a filter installed on it that the owner of the property is in charge of cleaning, etc.
 
QEW- How do you rinse this stuff off? It doesn't leave a film? How is dirt floated off with no water?





Drain- I've heard of "brown water drains" allowed in garages here in GA for sinks in a detached garage for washing your hands. The drain goes into a leech field like a septic system. Only soapy water is allowed down the drain.
 
gmblack3a- Nice 7 series, what's with the nice rollaround boxes?

I guess I'll be buying some QEW and trying it out. Where do you get it in the ATL area?
 
shumax said:
That may br true in your area, but it isn't here, or in Cleveland, Ohio. The water would run into the storm, sanitary, sewer. Again, on the premise it were just the by products of a car wash, who cares?



I realize that not everyone would be as honest; thus the reason we can't do it. I still say there should be a way to have a filter installed on it that the owner of the property is in charge of cleaning, etc.
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Well that assumes that your drain would be somehow connected to the sanitary sewer system. If you were just to drill a hole through the floor, into the gravel, it would not be connected.

As you said, it's not much of a concern with car wash runoff, but if drains were allowed for anyone, other fluids contained in a garage might find their way down the drain.
 
White95Max said:
Well that assumes that your drain would be somehow connected to the sanitary sewer system. If you were just to drill a hole through the floor, into the gravel, it would not be connected.

As you said, it's not much of a concern with car wash runoff, but if drains were allowed for anyone, other fluids contained in a garage might find their way down the drain.
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I know when we lived in the Cleveland area, it was directly connected to the sanitary storm sewer. I'm not going to do anything with it here because of my concern with excess water under my garage floor.
 
mav63 said:
gmblack3a- Nice 7 series, what's with the nice rollaround boxes?

I guess I'll be buying some QEW and trying it out. Where do you get it in the ATL area?
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Sent you a pm, send me one if you did not get it.
 
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