Sink Drain Traps and Freezing Weather

[MountainDon]

Quite a while ago peternap posted an idea he was trying at his farm. Rather than vacuum dry the sink drains for a freezing weather close up he thought of using P-traps with a cleanout plug. He would then fit a 12 VDC sprinkler control valve in place o the cleanout plug. Tripping a timer switch would activate the solenoid valves and cause the water to drain away. The timer switch would turn off saving power.

Did anyone else try this? I was wondering if this worked in practice or if their were any unforeseen problems?

[peternap]

Don, I did try it in a test drain. I am using the method to drain the water system with great success, but that's another story. Since my greywater just drains into a a flower garden, I decided to not use traps at all.

The test trap worked well. I was concerned that I would have to backflush the valve grom time to time, but that's a tradeoff for the convenience of winterizing on a seconds notice.

[poppy]

petermap

Since my greywater just drains into a a flower garden, I decided to not use traps at all.

I don't mean to hi-jack Don's thread, but I was thinking of not using traps for the grey water as well.  How do you screen the discharge end or prevent critters from crawling up the pipe?

[MountainDon]

I was wondering about the critters too.     I have traps and I have also considered omitting them. It's a simple graywater disposal system as well. Traps are mostly used to prevent sewer gas from entering the building, but I wonder about mice.


The RV drain pipe from the graywater tank drains into a 5 gallon bucket set in the ground. The bottom is cracked and water drains out there. I use a piece of window screen to catch the larger drain debris. This is placed just under the lid which is at approximate ground level. We clean it out about once a year; there's never much crap on the screen.

[JRR]

One could always just use only one trap that all basins are connected to.  If elevations permit, that one trap could be below the frost line ... or otherwise freeze protected. 

Steel welded wire is about the only thing that will slow up a determined rodent.

[archangel]

I thought alcohol was used as an antifreeze (or some other type of organic antifreeze) with a thin layer of oil to prevent the alcohols evaporation (if sewer gas is an issue) was what was commonly used.

Just pour the alcohol in the drain to wash out most, or all of the water and top it off with a little veggie oil.

My question is how do you do the quick drain the hot and cold supply lines as well as the water heater?