Posted by Bob in SD on September 13, 2019 at 06:20:06 from (137.216.209.131):
Long story, but looking for advice.
When we bought this place the water softener discharged into basement floor drains that were routed around the septic tank and into a leach pit. I had a real drain field put in 10 or so years ago by a company that made several mistakes. I found out this summer that they made one more, and they cut the pipe from the floor drains, so those floor drains now just go into the dirt under the house.
Despite the water softener dumping 50 gallons into them 2-3 times a week, no problems were noticed. Until this very wet year. The water table (at least the local level under the house) got slightly above the basement floor so water is coming in at the foundation and up through the hole where the well water comes in and the yard faucet water goes out (just a hole in the cement floor with dirt packed around the pipes and conduit). About a month ago I verified that the floor drains go nowhere.
What to do?
1) Put it back like it was? It's a bit deep for a rental mini-ex (and I'm nervous digging that close to the foundation and the old septic tank), so it would cost $2-3K to get the floor drains hooked up to go into the new drainfield. It wouldn't be a lot of water, but I'd be putting more water in the drainfield at the exact times its likely to be saturated.
2) Just leave it, but try to run the water softener somewhere else? I'm guessing a sump pump won't last too long pumping salty brine? Also guessing there are pumps that can handle this. What are my options here?
3) Maybe along with #2. There are floor drains in only about 1/3 of the basement. The newer parts don't have drains, but have sump pumps with drain tile running outside of a foundation and into one sump and drain tile running under the original basement and also outside of the original foundation but under an addition feeding another. This tile is pretty OK (but if I have a backhoe out for # 1 I'll also fix a portion of the outside drain tile--this one I can reach with a mini-ex so I'll fix it either way). These sumps are dry year round most years, needed in the spring only about 1/3 of the time, and running constantly this year.
So, option 3 would be do do something similar on the problem 3rd of the basement. Rent a concrete saw and install a sump and pump with several tile/pea rock ditches under the cement floor so I can pump under that part of the basement and not put it into the drain field. Since it's lasted disconnected for so long, I'm not sure I need drains there if I reroute the softener discharge.
First, thanks for reading all of that. Second, thanks for any and all suggestions.
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