Pre-plumbed softener drain question

[Alan wilson]

Hopefully the picture attaches below. We’re trying to install a new water softener and the house was pre-plumbed for it. The water loop is obvious and not an issue but the drain line has me concerned. I blew into it and heard/felt it blow freely somewhere (there’s no outside drain end point on the house for it, just the 2 AC drains and water heater dump drains). I added a section of hose and primed the line to see if it would drain.

I was able to get about cups of water into it before the water filled up the upturned hose and stopped draining via gravity. Is this definitely the brine drain for the softener? I don’t know what else it could be for, but I also don’t want to flood the interior wall at 2am during the regen phase.

 

[Mikey]

Where is the softener located in the floor plan? Is there any possibility the known drains are shared with this one? When the hose tops out with the water poured in it, can you blow the water out? Hook up a Shop-Vac or similar to do the blowing, and see if there's air coming out anywhere at all. Are you on a sewer or septic system? I would first try to contact the builder for information before I start removing drywall, but that's a likely path.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Alan wilson]

There’s no basement, and my washer and drier are on the other side of the wall. I assume it’s tied into those drains but i’m Not sure. I just filled it back up and then blew thru it. It did eventually blow free. I was doing it by just blowing into it. That waters got to go somewhere right?

 

[Treeman]

The softener drain is supposed to be attached to your DWV system via an air gap. It's hard to believe they did that and buried it behind drywall.

Please keep us posted on what you find.
Common set up:

They have combined washer/water softener air gaps. Your solution might be to run your softener drain through the wall and into the washer drain: https://www.freshwatersystems.com/p...MI3sq0mbuO4AIVC4hpCh1qJQHdEAQYASABEgJXLvD_BwE

 

[Alan wilson]

Looking at your picture, that trap is amount the amount of water I poured in before it started backing up. But the water coloumn I created should have pushed out the same amount on the other side. I REALLY don’t want to open the drywall (my wife would just love that) but I might have to.

 

[Mikey]

By "no basement" do you mean you're on a slab, or a crawlspace?

You might make it less obvious by opening up the wall on the other side, and you could hide the hole behind the washer for as long as you needed to. I wouldn't be surprised to see the softener drain plumbed into the washer drain somehow, although this might be less likely if the softener drain was installed at new construction.

As you get deeper into home ownership, drywall repair will become your best acquired skill.

 

[Alan wilson]

We’re def on a slab. I opened the wall a small amount and the small open pipe run down inside the wall into the concrete slab. It HAS to either drain into the main 4” PVC drain for the house (with a large trap to prevent sewer gas from entering) or ties in to another drain before hitting the main drain for the house. I can only post one picture at a time but here’s the wall opened a little

 

[Alan wilson]

And here it is dropping down to enter the slab. The rebar is attached to the water line for the softner loop.

 

[Mikey]

Looks more like a 90° that's capped, but in any event if you do dump a lot of water in it, it doesn't look like you'll fill the wall with water. Can you find a cleanout that you might look into and see if there's water flowing in the sewer when you squirt it down the suspected softener drain?

Remember, it's just as easy to patch a large hole as a small one.

 

[Alan wilson]

Puzzle solved. After hooking everything up and running the initial backwash cycle, we heard running water in the laundry room. Turns out the pipe runs under the slab to the laundry room and then into the drain with the washer discharge area.

 

[Mikey]

Well done. I was discussing your problem with an architect buddy and we guessed just about that. I'd love to know how those two streams meet up in the discharge standpipe, but don't bother cutting a new hole for me .

 

[Treeman]

Now, to cover that hole before your wife sees it! One solution would be to put a stainless cover over it if that is just a utility area.

 

[Reach4]

Alternatively, maybe a square 8 in. x 8 in. Access Panel, with spring mount, plastic cover.

A blank 2-gang outlet cover is another alternative.

 

[ditttohead]

https://www.mcmaster.com/access-panels