What is this??

House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

brewer55

Junior Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
43
Reaction score
5
When I moved into my current home, this is what I found under the sink in the unfinished basement (see photo attachment). I have confirmed that there is no power going to it so, there is no sump pump. Basically, there is a hose attached to the bottom of the sink and it is connected to that small bucket. There is an out hose that goes up, through the wall, and then down into a cutout in the cement slab just big enough for the house. I assume it is going into the septic system.

How is the water able to go up, and then down, as it leaves that bucket? Certainly not gravity. <scratching my head>.

Under sink.jpg
 
My follow-up that I meant to include is, what can I do to keep this maintained? Is this something someone jury rigged on their own or, is this something that is sold in plumbing supplies? I know Lowe's does not carry anything like this.
 
Looks jury rigged, but probably is effective. The water is forced through it as it's a sealed unit. It's probably meant to filter out solids in the waste water. Water goes in, solids drop to the bottom, and releatively cleaner water goes to the drain/septic system. I did the same thing with 30 gal. plastic drums (actually 2 in series), under the steps behind the sink, in the basement. I used the sink to clean out silk screens when I did silk screen printing. The chemicals where environmentally friendly , but I wanted to remove as much gunk from the water as I could so it wouldn't maybe mess up the downstream plumbing. Still Works to this day (going on 30 years), alothough I gave up silk screening years ago.
Just have to clean it out from time to time. Unless you dump a lot of bad stuff down the drain, it should go years between cleanings. Looks to be a translusent pail, with about 2" of solids on the bottom? Mine never have plugged up, but then I have 2 - 30 gallon drums.
 
Last edited:
It&#8217;s an over sized trap with sediment capabilities as Gary mentioned. I would say it is DIY and has to be sealed to work. It may even have a baffle in it or different length pipes.

With a baffle it would collect both stuff that floats and stuff that sinks.

I made one like that out of a locomotive air tank cutting one end off and digging an 8&#8217; deep hole before my leach field and standing it on end. Grease floats to the top and solids sink to the bottom and cleaner water goes out to the field.
 
Interesting. I rarely use that sink until the last week. I have some week old chicks in a brooder in the basement. I've been giving them clean drinking water twice a day and have been pouring it down that drain and then filling it up again. It had me take a look at it again and to try and figure out how it was working. I have 2 friends that were in the plumbing department at Lowe's. Neither one of them said that they had seen anything like that before. Thanks for the feedback. I feel better now! ;-)
 
grey water systems are to be completely independent of the rest of the house. this is not so in the video , it shares a common vent pipe with the rest of the house , so you get sewer gases in your garden. . also the gray water is to be filtered before use. There are grey water systems that are code approved, but not this one.
 
grey water systems are to be completely independent of the rest of the house. this is not so in the video , it shares a common vent pipe with the rest of the house , so you get sewer gases in your garden. . also the gray water is to be filtered before use. There are grey water systems that are code approved, but not this one.
Can we assume you're talking about the one in the video?
Also, will that bucket qualify as a filtration system?
 
Maybe at one time they used the sink for washing a lot of solids & gunk off something and they didn't want to plug up a standard gooseneck trap. Or maybe it was as simple as not wanting to take the time to run to the hardware store for a drain assembly, as they had this bucket that wasn't being used. so..... :clap: Whatever the reason, I bet it works just fine.
 
I have installed one for a dental lab. It was used in a sink that they used to cut and shape dental molds.
 
I have installed one for a dental lab. It was used in a sink that they used to cut and shape dental molds.

Yup, that type of application is the perfect use for one of these. Sure beats constantly routing out the trap.
 
Back
Top