Hello all,

The helpful and informative replies to the water change thread, plus Tom's emphatic suggestion to go for it, have prompted me to explore hard plumbing a drain line. Don't tell my wife.

I will have a plumber install the line, and I have made appointment for someone to come over and have a look. I figured I'd ask everyone here if there are considerations I should think about, in terms of what to tell the plumber I want to achieve. So what do I need to know, what clever cosiderations are there?

My simple thinking for talking to the plumber was to just to

(1) identify where I want the drain line to come out of the wall (i.e., what spot on the wall within the room should the drain tube stick out from),

(2) specify a 1 or 1.5" line is to be used, and

(3) put in a check valve to make sure house waste water does not ever seep up the tank drain water tube.

I would then attach fittings to the plumbed drain tube sticking out of the wall that would allow me to hook a flex tube drain line from tank to the hard plumbed drain tube. Then turn on a hobby pump when I want to drain tank. If that's all there is, good. But hindsight is 20/20, so I invite suggestions more well thought out than my own.

Cheers,

"growitnow"
Bob

Since you are adding a drain, you will also want to add fill line that is able to mix warm/cold water to a desired temp.

Same type of deal, attach hoses to drain and to fill.
So you can leave the hoses on perhaps all the time and use a valve to switch between normal operation and water changing.

One valve to drain, one to fill.

Tell the wife it'll save you lots of time/energy to spend with her more, less work and less mess.

It's all true also.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Tom, thanks.

But re: fill line. If a fill line is brought into the room through the wall, a kitchen or sink faucette would have to be attached to the line on the inside of the room, yes?

A whole sink fixture would not work in the room, so I'm not sure what my options are for what kind of fixture needs to be inside the room to permit mixing hot and cold. I had been prompted to explore a drain line only, but you are right - if I'm putting in a drain line it would make sense to complete the picture with a fill line also.

What I remain curious on is, in these applications where plumbing is brought to rooms of a home where such plumbing ordinarily would be out of place, what type of fixture (for the fill line) will protrude into the room? Or what kinds of fixtures suit this purpose but remain low profile and don't require an entire sink.

Of course the answer is "any kind you can buy at the hardware store - it's your house", but a sink faucet sticking out of a spare room wall seems odd so I'm curious how people handle this.

"growitnow"
Bob

There are many simple ball type valves to use for a fill line faucet. Think of your shutoff valves under your sink. Those are very small. Also, if your going to run a couple of lines, you could build a little recess in the wall with a trap door you can flip up to access the valve, and a small cutout where the hoses can pass through when it's closed. A small electrical access style box painted the color of your walls would work well. Ideally it would be concealed behind the tank/stand anyway. If you need to sell your house, you can remove it and patch over it.

Have you ever seen those nice recessed faucet boxes they put into walls?
They are off set and go into the wall about 4-6" and have the two lines coming out, one can be replaced with a drain etc or you can have a hot+ cold line and a drain.

This looked decent and can be covered with a face plate when you are not changing any water etc.

The advantage is that you do not need to dray out hoses through the home.
But you can still do this same thing with hose remotely anywhere in a home etc.
Just get some connectors and clamp, U shaped pvc pipe to use as a hanger for refill or drain.


I hear people carry on about water changes and how they cannot do them etc etc, but if you own the home, can afford a big old fish tank, want to grow things relatively fast and clean things easily, it's well worth the $.

If you own a pet, take good care of it.
One of the best methods: do large weekly water changes.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Think about getting a shower valve, of the type that is designed to make sure the shower water is always at the same temperature. Those work by keeping the hot and cold water flows always in the same ratio. Plumb that near the water heater, and run the "shower" line up to the tank with a shut off valve just inside the wall. Once you set the "shower" temperature, it should stay at the same temperature until either your incoming cold water or water heater outlet temperatures change by a large amount.

edacsac & Tom:
Recessed vavle box great idea. We have one in laundry room, I had not thought of that.

Vaughn:
I have not heard of a "shower valve" that maintains stable water temperature, but that is a VERY useful suggestion. Plumber is coming this afternoon and I will ask about that.

Last night I went to hardware store looking at faucets & valves, I did not see any hot+cold valves that were particularly low profile. Those I saw were the large jeweled shower or tub knobs, perhaps the plumber will have options or I can find something online.

Good suggestions, thanks.


"growitnow"
Bob

You could also do something like asking them to install a washing machine hookup fixture in the wall near the tank. That way you'd have a place to run your drain hose into and have the refill valves handy on a fixture that is designed to have hoses connected.

I did the shower only valve thing for my tank and have it mounted on the inside of my aquarium stand to be out of sight. Just ran a hose from where the shower head attaches to my sump tank which is also located inside the stand. If you use solenoid valves to auto turn on for automatic water changes or top offs, make sure to connect one on the hot and one on the cold before the shower valve instead of one on the shower head output. I made this mistake, and it allowed my hot & cold water supplies to mix while the shower valve was on and the solenoid valve was off, had warm water from all faucets in the house, oooops, guess that's why I'm not a plumber.

I drilled an overflow into the upper portion of the back side of my sump tank and connected it to a drain pipe I made come in thru the floor and tank stand. This way I can't accidently overfill the tank.

vidiots:
Very good information. Let me summarize my understanding of your set up, then ask a few questions.

You have a hot line in, and a cold line in. These two lines go to your shower head. Shower head ouput goes to sump. Sump has overflow. Overflow goes to wastewater out.

1) How do you regulate temperature of water in. Do you have a standard single-knob water mixer that you have to adjust each time you fill (as in most bathtubs or showers); or, do you have the 'constant temperature' shower valve?

2) The overflow design is really great. "What if it overflows?" is not a trivial issue regardless of adequate safechecks put in place. Having overflow go to a bonafide drain line seems among the best 'safety' that I have seen.

In my case, the tank is on the ground floor, and positive pressure for draining (or exit of overflow water in set up such as yours) would be created by turning on a separate hobby pump. The idea of overflow going to waste water is very attractive. Any suggestions for how to approach the "fail safe" kind of system you have, given gravity may not be sufficient to carry drain water?

3) re: solenoids. I do not understand two aspects of the hot/cold mixing from solenoid use.

(a) Assuming there is a single solenoid from shower head output to sump:
If operating this solenoid which opens the line to water causes hot/cold water to be mixed throughout the house, this would imply that ANY time a shower head is used (e.g., for taking a shower in the bathroom) that the same problem would occur (hot and cold water would get mixed throughout the whole house).

(b) Assuming there is one solenoid for the hot line and one solenoid for the cold line, with each installed before the shower head:
Separate solenoids for hot and cold would not fix the issue. When both solenoids are operated, both lines are open, just as in the case above so the problem is the same.

Let me predict my own misunderstanding - which surely comes from both a lack of plumbing experience in the house, or on tanks. If the undersirable hot/cold mixing does NOT occur when the shower head output is flowing (because positive pressure from hot and cold lines do not permit hot water to go into the cold line);

then, the problem would only occur if the shower head is off, and there is only a single solenoid in the line between shower head output and the sum. But even in this case, what I don't get is why hot and cold input lines would be able to mix, if the shower head were in an off state, doesn't the shower head knob need to be in an "on/open" state to perimt either input line to flow?

Sorry for the long descriptions, plumber is coming today. Though I don't have to make a decision immediately, I seek a better understanding of options/issues so I can better describe to plumber what needs to be done.

Thanks, very helpful so far.

"growitnow"
Bob

Delta makes several versions of a shower valve that maintains a constant shower water temperature. They are all essentially identical except for the trim. Once you set the temperature you want, you don't touch that valve again and everytime you take a shower the water is at that temperature. I'm sure the plumber knows about those valves.

I don't see a way a shower valve left open with the outlet plugged or shut off with a solenoid or shut off valve, can mix hot and cold water throughout the house, if it is hooked up right. If that is even possible, a check valve in each water line to the shower valve would prevent it, by preventing reverse flow.

If you plumb the drain from the tank to a plant bed and use that water to irrigate the plants, you should have more than enough head to drain without using a pump. I use a similar overflow to that described by vidiots - a drilled hole in the back of the tank with an elbow screwed on the inside of the tank with the top of the elbow at the desired water level. Mine is 1/2" pipe, and it drains to a planted area.

The valves inside the house should not be bathroom fixture valves, but hardware store plain ball valves, which shut off with a 90 degree turn of the handle. The laundry room valve idea is a good one too, but keep the shower valve out of the room, where it isn't visible, and adjust it once and forget it after that. The problem with using a laundry room plumbing set up for a drain is that that drain is open to the air, thus allowing some smell and or vermin to enter the house. A good plumber will be able to prevent any problems of that type.