Powdered detergents clogging septic lines?

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supersuds

supersuds

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This was a new one on me.

Friends built a house in the country about 15 years ago. It has a septic tank and a drainfield. Recently their youngest son (a second grader) ran inside announcing he'd discovered a "new spring." You guessed it -- it was a clogged sewer line that had popped its cork, so to speak.

The guy who came to pump out the septic tank told them there was nothing wrong with the tank, but showed them a filter in the line ahead of the tank that was completely clogged with a white substance he identified as powdered laundry detergent. He said that using a HE machine (which they've had since 2010) made it worse. He advised them to use only liquids and the problem would never recur.

I kept my mouth shut, but have grave doubts about all this. True, they've been heavy users of Tide HE powder, which is probably loaded with washing soda and zeolites, and they live in an area with fairly hard water (central Kentucky) but it's hard to believe that laundry detergent/minerals alone would cause a clog, when you consider all the other stuff going through there.

Also, the sewer guy also claimed that using a water hog washer would help, but that takes MORE detergent, not less. So wouldn't that cause more clogging? This implies he thinks its a flow problem, too.

Anyway, they've switched from Tide HE to (wait for it) XTRA liquid and homemade washing soda/borax/soap! Something tells me this isn't going to be any better on their septic lines, AND their clothes will not be getting too clean, either...
 
Using "water hog washing machine would help":

Yes, because there would be more water to dilute powdered detergent.

"but it's hard to believe that laundry detergent/minerals alone would cause a clog"

Since the removal of phosphates powdered laundry detergents have often become full of solids that are either hard to dilute properly (especially in warm or cold water), and or aren't going to dissolve at all.

Sodium sulfate and Zeolites (a type of clay) do not dissolve. Washing soda really needs very warm to hot water to dissolve totally. Ditto for borax. This is even before having to deal with hard water minerals.

Most all laundry powders today contain precipitating water softeners. This means they are going to bind with hard water minerals and form solids that in theory should be drained away. But what happens when they drain away?

This problem isn't new and limited to septic tank systems. Many times plumbers must be called because pipes that routinely see water drained from washing machines have become caked up with not dissolved washing powders.

Feel bad they have had to use X-tra detergent. The stuff is really like coloured water than detergent. Maybe we can take up a liquid detergent collection!
 
I live part time in a high rise condo on the 10th floor. We have been asked not to use powdered detergents only liquids. They have had numerous flooding problems from washing machines using powder. We have a laundry room with 4 washers and dryers and signs all over the room no powder only liquids. The plumbers and finally an engineer came to find out why the flooding and they stated it was the use of powder detergents. It was clogging the pipes. How and why I don't know. The building was erected in 1986 so its not that old. Since this "rule" was put into place the flooding has stopped pretty much. So I guess there is some evidence that this is what was causing the flooding. Each unit has washer and dryer hook-ups besides the laundry room.
jon
 
Not sure sure on that one

Live 21 years in the country SW of Indy with my parents. Had well water, hard well water too. Mom used Bold3 or other powder detergent all those years and the septic never clogged.
For 15+ years she had a dishwasher too that drained into the septic as well. Nary a problem.
THe only thing it needed was an additional finger to accomodate the 3 bedroom manufactured home that arrived in the spring of 1993.

 
Liquids?

When I was living in Rome, in a furnished flat (well, sounds better than it was) suddenly I discovered that the drain pipes were all lined by a sort of thick layer of a strange thick greyish grime.

When I connected my washing machine, which was a water-hog top loader, the pressure and quantity of the drain water caused that grime to detach from the pipes and clog them.

I found in the flat a bottle of liquid "Bolt 2 in 1 with softener": the stuff had a sort of powder in suspension (looked like clay or chalk) which was exactly the same that clogged the drain pipes.

Powders, on the other side, often contain zeolites, which do not dissolve in water and hence might potentially clog the drain pipes
 
Septic Systems

18 years ago I had an engineered septic system installed that pumps uphill about 300 feet. By law, everything using water in the house has to go thru the septic because I am in a shoreland zone. The installer gave me a pamphlet with do's and dont's to keep the system at maximum efficiency and minimal problems. 1-NO garbage disposal. 2-only liguid detergent, 3-Only white, 1 ply toilet paper, 4-NO baby wipes down the toilet, 5-have pump station pumped out and inspected every 7-10 years. Other than a stuck float valve, the system has worked perfectly all these years following that advice.
 
 
Approx 9-years-old septic system here.  I've always used powders but the past couple years maybe 85% powder, 15% liquid.  No apparent trouble related to clogging thus far.  Wastewater service inspects 3 times per year.
 
laundry detergents have often become full of solids

I gather this means adding supplemental STTP wouldn't quite solve the problem either as the offending solids are still there..
 
I remember my dad calling a psuedo Roto Rooter type company to come and unclog the drain pipe to the washer once in the mide-60's and again in the early 70's. I remember what "fun" it was to climb on top of the washer (Frigidaire), and when the water got to the top of the drain pipe, either lift the lid or pull out the knob to the timer. However, there were those occasions when we didn't make it in time and water spewed out of the pipe and all over the floor.

Anyway, the plumber told us the instigator to the problem was high sudsing powders. He told my dad to switch to a low sudser and we more than likely wouldn't have the problem again. We made teh change and everything was fine. This lasted for a year or so until my dad noticed that Dash and All were a bit more pricey than Tide, Cold Power and Cheer. He switched back to those brands, which again warranted another call to unclog the drain.
 
I feel it has to be something else.

House here has used powdered detergents for 23 years, that's also the age of the house itself. No blocked septic lines.
 
newer septic systems are changing all the time....just had a neighbor who had a tank installed....and they have these lids that uncamp and pop up, and theres a so called filter/strainer that gets emptied about every three months...

odd as it may be....this could be the new wave of things to do in maintenance of septics.....

it has always been told that an autoamtic washer is a Septic tanks worst nightmare....

my house is only ten years old, with a newer style septic and field bed configuration.....even the Cleanout Crew asked if we have re-routed the washer to another source!....think about it, I have 4 Flers pumping into it!.....

I have been in homes where only the kitchen sink and toilets are routed to one tank....and tubs, sinks, dishwasher, and washer are routed to a gray water tank...and this was by code, at least for that area!

I still don't get why a disposer is not allowed in a septic setup!....this oe puzzles me....
 
Sodium sulfate and Zeolites do not dissolve...

Actually sodium sulfate is quite soluble in water. However it is a temperature dependent solubility, with the solubility increasing 10-fold between 32F and 90F (0C to 33C). However, since the temperature of the ground outside of permafrost areas is generally at least 50F, I'm not sure this is a factor in septic tank solubility. Since sodium sulfates only role in laundry detergents is as a bulking agent, the use of concentrated or HE powders may reduce or eliminate them as a factor anyway.

Zeolites are another matter. They are indeed a form of dirt (aluminum silicate) and do not become soluble at any normal household temperatures. They are easily suspended in water, however, and really should only become an issue once they settle out in the septic tank by gravity, necessitating somewhat more frequent tank servicing. How many boxes of laundry detergent do you use per year, and what is the solid capacity volume of the tank? May not be noticeable in the home tank. However it has been noted in the literature as a matter of concern for municipal waste water treatment systems, where the zeolites can increase the amount of sludge the treatment plants have to handle.

Washing soda, or sodium carbonate, is very soluble in water. It is actually more soluble in water at 95F, than, say, at 130F. However the difference is negligible for home laundry since the stuff can be soluble to the tune of one pat sodium carbonate to two parts water, a level not expected to be seen in any washer with normal amounts used. However washing soda can and will form insoluble precipitates with hard water minerals, forming the familiar limestone like scale in washers and perhaps pipes as well. And of course that precipitate may wind up as part of the septic tank sludge that must be pumped out after a number of years. Again, how many boxes of laundry powder does one use in, say, five years, compared to the capacity of the septic tank?
 
Thanks everyone, for the comments

Launderess, your links are always required reading. I like the idea of taking up a detergent collection, too.

Malcolm, there is no garbage disposal involved.

I'm in the camp of people who've never had any septic tank problems despite years, decades in fact, of powdered detergent usage. But I have no filter. According to the link below, some systems require them (on the outlet, not the inlet, so I misunderstood that part) and some don't. The filters are designed to be easy to clean with a garden hose. The expectation is that they WILL need to be cleaned. I'm thinking if my friends have gone all this time without having the filter cleaned they probably don't even have a problem; it's functioning the way it was designed.

http://publichealthathens.com/septic_system_faq.htm
 
Also, from what Rich (sudsmaster) and Launderess posted, it doesn't seem so unlikely that filter-clogging hard water deposits could develop. I suspect my friends do a lot of washing in cold water, though I haven't interrogated them about it. They've become quite the greenies in the past few years, and their towels always look dingy, as catty as it sounds to say that. So it's possible the washing soda isn't getting dissolved in the first place.
 
Don't understand

If they have been buying Tide HE, why switch to cheap liquid, or the homemade soap mix ?
Why not try liquid All (free n clear) or some such... Most liquid detergents say that they are septic safe?

Use some hot water, for white loads, and clean the screen once in a while, with CLR or something ?
Might be a good idea to empty the hot water tank to get some of the hard water build up out of it too.

Don't know what the addition of STPP would do to a septic tank? Launderers, or Sudsmasterter would though!
 
Interesting

I wonder what it could be.........some people with septic tanks reports clogs using powdered detergent, while others don't.

I don't have a septic tank - I'm on city water.....but I always use powder. I couldn't imagine using liquid. I don't like it.

But speaking of plumbing, this has sort of reminded me of something that happens with my plumbing.......

Sometimes, if you flush the toilet, the bathtub or sink in that same bathroom will make a gurgling sound........so I run a bunch of water down the drains in both sink and bathtub, and it stops for a few weeks......then you hear the sound again, so I repeat.......the drains drain really fast. Nothing is clogged. I have never understood why the drains gurgle sometimes in the bathroom after the toilet has been flushed. I hope I haven't got a buildup in my pipes from using powered detergent.
 
Since STPP is Phosphate, I would merely expect (maybe) some algal growth in the septics, or a very green lawn around where the leech-drain "lives." And if you encourage plant growth like that, then I'd be wary of encouraging tree-roots (and the like) into the system... 

 

Of course, with tree-roots living in the leech-drain, you'd probably have a hard time flushing the toilet without it, well, overflowing!
 
I think the point is ...

... that with the introduction of phosphate-free detergents, the powdered stuff isn't dissolving properly.

Washing in less-than-hot water appears also to be exacerbating the problem.
 
Mark.....you may have a blocked air vent somewhere....even the roof.....

I was having these issues too, but only at certain times....I thought to climb on the roof and figured on running a garden hose down there with gushing water to clear anything out(maybe a bird or bee nest), only to find that during shipment of the house there were these plugs in the vents, for whatever reason, once removed, all these issues stopped....

I have 4 vents coming out of the roof, and each one had a plug in it.....who would have thought....something to check out!
 
I don't recall ever hearing that STPP could break down zeolites... and I'm pretty sure I never claimed it!

Zeolites are basically aluminum silicate. They have lots of nooks and crannies on an atomic level that can capture and hold hard water mineral atoms. In this way they function to make hard water softer. I'm not aware that sodium tripolyphosphate can break down silicates, aluminum or otherwise.

After thinking about it a bit, I figure that any screen in a septic tank must be at the top, before the lines to the drain field. To keep "floaters" from clogging the drain field lines, I suppose. I'm just guessing, but putting the filter between the house and the tank would make far less sense.
 
bathtub or sink in that same bathroom will make a gurgling

As Yogitunes suggested, it sounds like a venting issue and/or partially blocked adjacent waste lines .

Every so often I drag the garden hose into the house, remove the strainer and blast out the shower drain. Even with new 2'' PVC piping I find lots of crud can, and does, accumulate in shower/tub drains over time for obvious reasons.

Especially if the venting, size, or pitch of the waste lines isn't ideal.

Whenever I'm on the roof with the hose cleaning the gutters I will blast some water down the vent pipes as well for good measure.
 
We are on city sewer now, but at our old house, which was built in 2000, we used our share of powder (laundry and dishwasher) for 12 years, and never had a problem 9 years was with a top load washer, and about 3 with a front loader. Believe it or not, the septic tank was NEVER pumped/cleaned. Still working fine to this day.
 
My roof

Is WAY too steep or I would. I once got on my roof to clean the dryer vent and had a panic attack because the pitch is THAT STEEP, but until you're actually ON the roof, you don't realize how steep it is....after I got down safely, I said I would never do that again....

I didn't realize how vent pipes even work.....or that you could just squirt water down them

The garden hose is a good idea. I might try it...INSIDE..

It doesn't happen all of the time though.....weird.

At least I know now what it possibly could be.
 

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