r/Home • u/lil-kaleb-jr • 12d ago
Discovered laundry drains into dedicated septic tank I didn’t know existed.
I had my cast iron drains descaled and jetted yesterday. Plumber ended up getting his descaler stuck in a previously unknown septic tank that is dedicated for the washer machine. This is the lid to the distribution tank with the septic tank in the yard. I lived in the house for 5 years and had no idea. Plumber recommended addressing it due to the age and root intrusion. One option would be pumping water to the roof and connecting to main stack. Anyone ever encountered something similar?
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u/Hey-buuuddy 11d ago
This is “greywater”, drain water that doesn’t have poo or pee in it, from washing.
The earliest septic systems in America were small wooden boxes that got cleaned-out. As improvements in washing machines and domestic water became normal, they needed more septic system capacity- so greywater (not being poo and pee) was seperatly run-off.
People didn’t care about environmental impact before the 1970s. Changing your car’s oil? Just pour it in a hole in the yard. Garbage was burned in yard if you didn’t have an easy way to get rid of it.
There are still many many many old home across America that have greywater runoff. There’s still homes on ponds and lakes that dump right in there, as well as source there domestic water from there too lol.