Washing powder - clogged my drains!

[kenmoreguy89]

James...
Oh so it was the ceramic, yes also ceramic is known to worn out and start to collect debris...ceramic attact scale more than plastic also.
Your set-up is quite weird for me as every home is required to have a septic system before enters town's sewage here...but it makes sense now.

 

[iej]

Are you sure about that?

A septic tank is an alternative to a public sewer connection, usually used in rural areas that don't have public sewers. It's designed to basically anaerobically (or sometimes aerobically) digest waste and rot it down and return the waste water to the environment in a 'reasonably' clean state.

I've never, ever heard of them being used in urban sewage as you'd most likely massively contaminate the ground water. They work fine in very low density population areas but if you've lots of them clustered together, you really need centralised sewage treatment as otherwise you're relying on everyone maintaining their systems perfectly and in the real world that won't happen.

You can also do much more high tech treatment in a big centralised plant due to the economies of scale involved.

In rural areas, if one tank goes wrong the dilution factor (i.e. not having very many homes) will usually (but not always) mitigate that to some degree.

It wouldn't really make any sense to have a septic tank and a public sewer.

In a public sewage system you're taking waste from homes and businesses and treating it centrally (usually to a much higher level of purity than a septic can could possibly do) and then retuning the cleaned water to the environment.

Explains all : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septic_tank

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Kenmore89 and Laundress:

The types of chemicals in drain cleaners are probably falling foul of increased consumer protection and environmental safety and even safety at work legislation.
Pouring harsh chemicals down a drain could damage the drain if you don't know what kinds of materials are involved. Most of us are blissfully unaware of what our drain pipes are made of unless we were involved in specifying the installation (built the house ourself) or we've had a problem and had to figure out what they're made of.

Most of us buy a house, and the drains, toilets etc are already in place and we've little/no idea how they all work beyond maybe the house plumbing and fittings. Once it goes down the drain, it's into buried pipes that could be decades or even centuries old.

Some caustic solutions may react very badly with old cast iron, steel and concrete drains and could dissolve the surfaces, cause pitting etc.

A lot of the older Victorian era (19th century) sewers around here would be made from wide cast iron pipes. They'd never use that kind of material these days as it would be astronomically expensive compared to plastics and concrete.

From a Health and Safety / Safety at Work point of view, you're possibly pouring nasty chemicals into a pipe that could subsequently be opened by a sanitation worker or a plumber needing to unblock it.

And, as Laundress pointed out, there's a risk of a violent reaction in a sink trap which could blow up in your face (literally).

There are also considerable issues with using liquid chemical drain unblockers or large amount of chlorine bleach or strong chemicals in general in septic tanks as you can kill off the bacteria that breaks down the sewage and cause major environmental contamination of ground water.

If you completely sterilise the septic tank, it will just sit full of gunk and you might need to actually add bacteria in powder/liquid form to re-colinise the tank.

In those kinds of systems, non-biodegradable material will also end up back in the environment so you should probably avoid pouring anything that isn't going to break down by biological action / reaction with water over time into your drains.

Even urban sewage plants don't really appreciate people putting in non-biodegradable products as they can ultimately pass through the plant and into the environment.[this post was last edited: 1/20/2015-07:44]

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Yes I am sure, certain towns, with an undersized plant (now about all) may require you to install a traditional tank to facilitate the job that the town's plant has to do (yes I know it's not fair as you pay taxes to have water treatment, and they won't pay if your tank gets clogged though...ah ah the assholes! But it's so), while for houses not connected to public sewage, like the ones in the countryside you have to put an himoff type not traditional only an himoff.
http://casa.uncome.it/articolo/come-funziona-la-fossa-biologica-6734.html
Thanks for the explanation,me I fully knew what it is for....

"The types of chemicals in drain cleaners are probably falling foul of increased consumer protection and environmental safety and even safety at work legislation."

Yeah...the usual Nanny state for the stupid folk tale...poor world.

-"Some caustic solutions may react very badly with old cast iron, steel and concrete drains and could dissolve the surfaces, cause pitting etc."
-People unaware of pipes materials...

It's good advice to discover what your pipes are made of before pouring any chemicals, that's one of the points I warned of initially...those are things you learn as you live in your house...
Knowing the power based on concentrations is somethinh you also need to know.

Bad reactions are not that common but possible,and anyway usually due to very strong acid not the stuff you find at the supermarket, acid and lead or alu is another example (just watch youtube, it's full of kids making bombs with alu and acid), but it all relies in using a right quantity and know what you're doing, cast iron are known to be problematic anyway.... and it's not like you do that any day also...that's why stronger or concentrated stuff is used by professionals...but the others are not that dangerous in the concentrations that comes....sure is that on the long run and if used often will potenetially damage...but that something you do once in awhile.

"And, as Laundress pointed out, there's a risk of a violent reaction in a sink trap which could blow up in your face (literally)."
And that's why is stated and warned in any instructions of these bottles to pour on a certain distance and wear protections, if you're so stupid or too lazy to do that anyway it's your business, if something happens no one to blame except yourself, the same if you mix acid and base or do potions or stupid things... as long as you were given the chance to be informed (safety labels) then it's really your own business and fault.

"There are also considerable issues with using liquid chemical drain unblockers or large amount of chlorine bleach or strong chemicals in general in septic tanks as you can kill off the bacteria that breaks down the sewage and cause major environmental contamination of ground water. "

Unless you use tons of pure and or very big amounts and every day it's not that much of a problem...
Also, it happens that sometimes the enviroinment in the tanks is too acidic and adding a base from time to time helps to keep a favorable ph inside the tank, often that is reached by detergents that helps keeping a fair pH, that's why our domestic tanks don't typically turn too basic or too acid because we have a sort of balancing in this sense, the results of an anaerobic digestion is infact an acid...

Other common problems in tanks is mixed waters....

You may sure want not to run rain waters and such into the tank (this is for urban homes with septic connected to sewers and or country houses without a drain field and percolation system, becuase many old country houses here don't have an underground drain field but drains either in a ditch/trench or stream or surface lower to the house and they had the rain directed in the septic hence no problem of overfilling/saturated drain soil, now of course you generally need to make an underground draining system and have rain drains separated to the tank) as it will rinse off much stuff before it's digested and will result in a clog more likely to happen, also will diminuish the qty of bacteria, unfortunately this is what I see happening many times in town (still happening now even though some more conscious builders don't, in the past it was just standard for urban settings and before treating plants)....our condo also directs all roof drain waters in the drain columns and end up in the condo septic tank...
In this town like many others (would hazard saying most?) we have a common "mixed" sewer, called "unitario"- "Unitary" no separate white/grey and drak waters, all goes togheter to the treating plant, storm waters both from buildings and streets are mixed with waste waters in the sewers and all gets treated (that is also why they want not to over-work the treatment plant and ask you to put a septic),...many big cities such as Rome Naples etc... also still use many tracts of sewers that were built at the time of the Ancient Rome or ancient times.
This is not the best attitude today but doing a change in that sense would mean cut down a whole town or city and a crazy amount of costs no one can pay, especially now that we're squeezed like lemons to please and get fat the fucking "EU" and the sold out pigs that are our italians politicians ...

 [this post was last edited: 1/20/2015-12:54]

 

[iej]

In general here, it's completely illegal to install a septic tank in an any urban are or rural area that has public sewers.
The logic is that a high-tech treatment plant is a far better solution and there's a risk of ground-water contamination.

Where you do have a septic tank, it's subject to annual inspections by the County Council to ensure it's working correctly.

You don't have to pay for waste water treatment if you're on one of those systems, but you do have to pay an annual inspection fee.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Over here....

If we had to get our stuff checked that way I bet someone would get shot....

 

[iej]

It seems if your septic tank fails the inspection, they will pay up to €4000 (about $4700) towards upgrades/repair work.

But, it's means tested against your income somewhat too.

You have to register the system etc at:

https://www.protectourwater.ie

 

[fisherpaykel]

Drains, clogs, low flow toilets, kitchen grease

Malcolm, very valid point re retrofitting low flow toilets, Ontario Canada Gov't. had a study re low flow toilets in existing 4 inch sewer pipes and drain line carry-results yes 1 or 2 flushes will not clear the waste to the street and this was in a test rig with new plastic drains properly sloped, clean-not the real world norm. and now we have some 3.8 litre vs 6 litre toilets-3 inch sewer pipe is the new standard I think? Also, keep kitchen fat and oil out of the drains, wipe with paper towels before washing and avoid future clogs. I have cleared a few friends kitchen drains, not at all a pleasant job, but what are friends for?

 

[iej]

Our low flow are 6 litre. The older types use a syphon system and were about 9 litres. These have a handle and had no valves, the syphon avoids this.

I still have one of those and two 6 litre press button type dual flush.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I use powder

but how water for every wash......I can't remember the last time I used warm or cold. So far no problems. KNOCK ON WOOD

 

[mark_wpduet]

how should have been hot - sorry, didn't proofread

 

[iej]

I usually only use powder with towels, light coloured bed linen as I don't generally want my colour clothes faded.
The mainstream bio washing powders here contain a source of peroxide bleach that releases during the wash along with a cocktail of enzymes and other detergent ingredients.

For normal laundry i.e. most of my clothes, I usually use Persil Small & Mighty (Bio) which is just a TOL concentrated liquid detergent.

I usually wash normal laundry at 40ºC (104ºF), some delicate items get done at 20ºC (68ºF) and I usually do towels at 60ºC (140ºF) and even 90ºC (194ºF) if they need to be really sterilised and more because it's just good for the washing machine to give it a good scald out with very hot water once in a while to prevent mould issues.

It's a Miele W1 washing machine which has a high-level rinse set so it's not exactly skimping on water and should be flushing plenty of it down the drain.

The drain also blocked about 150m away from the point the washing machine drain enters into it too so, it's unlikely the water would be hot by then even if it was pumped in at very high temperature.

We also have high-flow showers and plenty of other water going down those drain lines so they're not exactly lacking in water flow tbh.

I've done my last few towel loads using Persil Small and Mighty and a shot of Vanish Oxy Action Crystal White just added directly to the back of the drum and its seems to have worked extremely well. The towels came out nice and fluffy and very, very white after a relatively short 60ºC wash. (The little scoop of Vanish powder doesn't really seem to dispense very well from the drawer.)

The Miele W1's cotton cycle is actually pretty spectacularly good. It uses a combination of various tumbling patterns including some periods of tumbling at nearly distribution spin cycle speed while spraying the wash water back into the 'tunnel' created in the middle of the wash.

The jet switches on and off throughout the cycle and absolutely douses the clothes in water. The combination of the narrow drum holes in the 'Honeycomb care" drum and the powerful jet seems to really create a huge amount of water flow thorough the fabric and that seems to just gently, but very effectively clean it in a relatively short time.

It looks a lot more 'spectacular' than a typical FL washing - There's much more water cascading around the place and the drum's in action almost constantly - it hardly lets the clothes rest for more than 1 second.

Basically, I'm finding that in a 60 min wash cycle (this is when you press the Short option), I'm getting superior results to a 2h50min cycle on the Samsung we had previously!

For example, a 60 min cotton cycle at 40ºC removed deodorant marks on t-shirts that the Samsung never removed even on painfully long cottons programmes.

The Miele is also programmable to do very thorough rinsing which means it will fill pretty deep and add extra rinses too.

Overall, just very impressed with how well it cleans.

My only slight issue is that the floor is wooden (wooden structure) so I'm going to have to look at reinforcing it or possibly moving the laundry room elsewhere to reduce vibration. The Miele doesn't really shake but the house around it does lol