Dog Pen

I'm designing a new dog pen for my house. The current pen is in a bad location and has had plumbing issues for years. At any time, I will have four or five fairly large dogs. Ultimately, I'll get a professional plumber to put everything in, but I'm enjoying figuring out the best way to build a dog house. And I doubt the plumbers in the area have much experience with dog kennels, so we'll both be glad of any help.

The new pen will have four 15'x5' runs, at the end of which will be a trough. The runs will slope to the trough. The bottom of the trough itself will be sharply sloped, and at the low point will be a drain connecting to the city sewer system. Skipping the details, I'm not worried about storm water getting into the drain, so that shouldn't be a problem.

First question. Luckily, the pen will be located very close to the sewer main, and in an area where I can dig as I please, so I'm not too limited in options on size and type of drain pipe. Is 6" pipe enough? Iron or PVC?

Second question. I assume there needs to be a trap, but if it's just a standard elbow trap, what can I do to keep it from clogging? In addition to waste, there will inevitably be dog hair and other debris that gets washed into the drain.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, cbg

Sounds like you would be better served with a trench drain system rather than sloping the concrete, making a grate to keep debris out and then going to a hub drain. The installation will be cleaner looking and likely work better.

We don't much like to skip "details" though. Your sewer provider WILL be concerned about storm water getting into the drainage system unless they approve a combination sewer/storm drain for their system.

Thanks Florida. The curved base of the trench would definitely assist with moving the waste through the trough and to the drain. The hub drain will still need a trap, though, right? Any ideas on how to stop from getting clogged?

A grate in theory would look better, but my experience with grates for dog pens is that you just end up leaving them in open position all the time. The least fun part of being a dog owner is cleaning the pen, specifically moving the waste to the drain with your spray hose and shovel. If you have a grate, then in order to get the waste past the grate, you have to lift it up each time you clean the pens (which should be done every day). Sooner or later the grate stops getting closed. I should mention that in the new pen, the trough will be outside the pens. In other words, there will be four runs with floors of sloped concrete floors and walls of chain link fence. On the end of runs, outside the fence, will be the perpendicular trench. So I'll wash the waste down to the end of the runs, underneath the fence, and into the trench.

I understand storm water getting into the drain will be an issue, but I think I have it in hand. Also, I'm only smart enough to work on one issue at a time.

nice discussion...........