Shut down by the city because of sand in the sewer

[washman2016]

The city just shut my wash down saying that sand is filling the sewer lines. This is a 20 year old wash I have owned it for 3 years. Last year they complained and I showed them how the pits worked and said unless sand floats it can not be coming from here.

Has anyone had this problem before? Also where can I find drawings on how pit traps are made to show them mine are to standards?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Randy]

Are you using an oil water separator tank on your sewer discharge prior to discharging to the sewer system? Up here in the Pacific Northwest we have to use an oil water separator tank before discharging any effluent into the sewer system. It would virtually impossible to put any sand into the sewer system if your using an oil water separator tank.

 

[mjwalsh]

Did the inspector say something about too little water standing in the pit in proportion to the dirt-mud-sand? That seemed to be a concern by one of our city's inspectors. I wonder if there is "some grandfathering in" when it comes to pit traps? An older former employee who use to lease service stations was familiar enough ... so just before it goes out to the sewer ... we made a stainless steel framework ... so there is about a 4'x2' area with a stainless cover over it for the 90° downward facing pipe that goes out to the city is isolated & only adjacent water at a higher level enters & almost zero anything but water. We have signs & watch carefully (mostly attended) for anyone releasing oil that will float on top.

It seems from public announcements etc. grease from restaurants & even residences is something they watch even closer. I have seen city crews use the fire hydrant water to flush the storm sewer system sometimes. Being this far north in North Dakota & in a city ... the city crews & highway dept uses massive amounts of sand ... but again it appears that would be specific to storm sewers.

I am sure someone who recently developed a car wash with all the correct permits can share the most current federal requirements ... a specific city may have add'l requirements though. The quality of the drawing(s), video, &/or animation certainly could be a factor!

 

[Overachiever]

Here's a drawing of my pits, I'm assuming yours are similar. I needed to modify my building to make it a little bigger for a new IBA and the water reclamation people were being jerks, saying my pits are bad and doing the project would remove any grandfathering I had in place. But after a year of back and forth and them coming out and looking at them they finally gave me the green light and I didn't have to change anything. I sold this drawing as the sand sinks to the bottom and the oil floats to the top and only the clean water leaves out the pipe... lol.

 

[washman2016]

I do not separate oil and water. Sand and water go in the main pit and water overflows into a smaller pit and rises to the top and goes out the line. The city just stopped by and said they found a massive chunk of grease in the line. So hard they could not break it up. But there is sand in the line so I am not sure this is over.

 

[Randy]

I do not separate oil and water. Sand and water go in the main pit and water overflows into a smaller pit and rises to the top and goes out the line. The city just stopped by and said they found a massive chunk of grease in the line. So hard they could not break it up. But there is sand in the line so I am not sure this is over.

Do you have a "T" or 90 pointing down on the outlet of the small tank that goes out to the city sewer?

 

[washman2016]

Here's a drawing of my pits, I'm assuming yours are similar. I needed to modify my building to make it a little bigger for a new IBA and the water reclamation people were being jerks, saying my pits are bad and doing the project would remove any grandfathering I had in place. But after a year of back and forth and them coming out and looking at them they finally gave me the green light and I didn't have to change anything. I sold this drawing as the sand sinks to the bottom and the oil floats to the top and only the clean water leaves out the pipe... lol.

View attachment 1033

Thank you for the drawing. Mine is like that but with two chambers. Main catches water and sand. Then the water overflows to the other chamber and rises to the top and out the drain.

 

[washman2016]

Do you have a "T" or 90 pointing down on the outlet of the small tank that goes out to the city sewer?

Yes I have a 90 pointing down, I am going to add about 2" of pipe on to it just for the hell of it. But I do not think its going to help there problem.

 

[Randy]

Yes I have a 90 pointing down, I am going to add about 2" of pipe on to it just for the hell of it. But I do not think its going to help there problem.

There's no way in hell your going to be putting sand into the city sewer system. There on a fishing trip looking for someone to blame. How long as it been since you last cleaned out the sump tank?

 

[JGinther]

They might end up putting you on a schedule (much more often than you might like) where you have to show receipt of service from the pumping company that hauls the pit mud. I know of several out here that didn't pump the sand til the bay clogged and you could walk on the mud... Well, that defeats the point of having the sand trap in their eyes... Its not there to store til its full - Its there to pre-treat the sewer water. The owner is failing in their mind if sand is getting by.

 

[washman2016]

They might end up putting you on a schedule (much more often than you might like) where you have to show receipt of service from the pumping company that hauls the pit mud. I know of several out here that didn't pump the sand til the bay clogged and you could walk on the mud... Well, that defeats the point of having the sand trap in their eyes... Its not there to store til its full - Its there to pre-treat the sewer water. The owner is failing in their mind if sand is getting by.

We clean our pits with a ring-o-matic pit cleaner. We clean the pits as soon as the main pit is full. It is next to impossible to clean the main pit with lots of water in it. We clean the over flow (water) pit when it fills to the bottom of the pipe causing the pit to flood. Again no sand can go down the drain unless it floats up the pipe.

 

[JGinther]

Again no sand can go down the drain unless it floats up the pipe.

It can. Very easily. Do you have automatics? The purpose of the "trap" is to trap the sand. It does this by slowing the velocity of the water enough for the particulates to fall out of solution. If there isn't sufficient volume of water there to do so (based on your water output volume) then the pit is already 'too full' or possibly 'too small'. Do you have a 'main' sand trap after bay 'primary' traps?

 

[Waxman]

Here's a drawing of my pits, I'm assuming yours are similar. I needed to modify my building to make it a little bigger for a new IBA and the water reclamation people were being jerks, saying my pits are bad and doing the project would remove any grandfathering I had in place. But after a year of back and forth and them coming out and looking at them they finally gave me the green light and I didn't have to change anything. I sold this drawing as the sand sinks to the bottom and the oil floats to the top and only the clean water leaves out the pipe... lol.

View attachment 1033

Mine are similar but I have a T at the top where you have a 90.

 

[washman2016]

Here is a bad pic of what my pits look like. One pit for each bay.

 

[mjwalsh]

Your pic shows the relevant items "side view". Not sure if every locality will accept it as their version of a 100% functioning oil-sand separator though like Randy N alluded to.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

I have a large oil/sand interceptor pit in the driveway that all the water (after it settles) in the bay pits flow into.
It gets cleaned out every time the pits get cleaned.
Any time they were checked from the county there was never an issue.
I would suggest looking into doing this.

 

[Greg Pack]

You're probably going to need another trap after the pits to catch everything.

 

[Randy]

The city just shut my wash down saying that sand is filling the sewer lines. This is a 20 year old wash I have owned it for 3 years. Last year they complained and I showed them how the pits worked and said unless sand floats it can not be coming from here.

Has anyone had this problem before? Also where can I find drawings on how pit traps are made to show them mine are to standards?

Thanks for the help.

Well do you have any updates for us? Are you still shut down?

 

[water guy]

We are on Monthly inspections. And Our Water Guy adds some type of silica to our main city septic line and the sand and grit moves on down.

 

[washman2016]

I am sorry I thought I posted an update on this. The city found a VERY large grease plug in the line. They let me reopen to flush the line after the plug was removed. I have not heard a word from them after that.