Dehumidifier drain question

[Myk Rian]

Since you made no mention that you read my previous post, I'll repeat.
I have heat tape running in my gutters, and inside the downspouts. They never freeze up. Even with extended -20º days last year.
One of the tapes is run through the underground (3" under) drain pipe, and also never freezes. It actually keeps the snow melted on the ground.

Just run the heat tape down the drain line and forget about it. Your contractor is clueless.

[Raymond Fries]

Myk, I did read your prior post and thank you very much for your comments. It has become very obvious that the contractor cut a corner and just trying to minimize his warranty work. LOL on clueless. I tend to agree. But then he is a Vice President for the company.

Mike, The smaller pipe is the same pipe which you can see exiting the house in the first picture. I do not know if the smaller pipe extends to the bottom of the two foot shaft or stops somewhere in between. The drain is just a hole they drilled. The smaller drain pipe just drips into the hole and soaks into the ground. The larger sleeve is full water at least partly because they filled the space between the drain pipe and the larger sleeve with gravel to at least ground level and maybe a little higher. I would like to see the gravel gone and use foam like you suggested. That would make it easier too replace someday. I do not know if they started outside or inside.

Contractor will call back Monday to talk to me. He wanted to contact the mfg of the heat take to make sure it was ok to run into the pipe.

hope this answered all the questions. I cannot seem to be able to scroll back the the prior page of posts.

thanks again everyone for your help.

[Myk Rian]

But then he is a Vice President for the company.

Well, there ya go. Explains everything.

[Kent A Bathurst]

... dump them into a sanitary drain.

Yeah - I was wondering about that. July-August in Atlanta you could almost shower with the ouput from the dehumidifier portion of our central air.

It drains into a small box - smaller than a shoebox - with a sensor that kicks on a 12v pump, and takes it up to the ceiling, 30'+ downstream through maybe 1/4" ID clear plastic tubing, and drops into the pipe that is the standpipe/equalizer above the clothes washer drain.

Gotta be 15 years old; never had a leak, never had maintenance.

Sure seems like that would be easy to do for the greenhouse, for a fire-and-forget solution, regardless of outside temp and frost levels.

Maybe separate storm - sanitary systems affects what and how you can do it?

I once thought about rerouting that plastic pipe to outside runoff collection tubs for the gardens, but that would be a fool's errand. I have 550 gal storage capacity fed by about 1/3 of the roof, and the math works out to 1" rain to fill from dry. That's doodly-squat for a shower in an Atlanta summer. Crazy, but Atlanta has no city-wide storm sewer, so the overflow from those tanks goes into the same sanitary system that the dehumidifier dumps to.

[Myk Rian]

We had a pump for our AC water. Dumped into the slop sink 20' away. I finally got wise and ran PVC to a floor drain near the furnace. Much quieter.

[Raymond Fries]

The original plan was to pump the water into a line running into the attic and tap into a pipe up there. They could not get to the attic from the greenhouse because of the way the roof was attached. There is no floor drain and that is why it was ran outside. Hopefully, the new fix will bring an end to this mess. I want them to fix it so the drain pipe can be taken apart to replace the tape someday. Hopefully, that two foot deep hole is below the frost line or nothing will be fixed.

Thanks again to all for your helpful comments.

[Kent A Bathurst]

OK - now I understand how it ended up the way it is. Good luck wth the fix.

FYI - I lived 90 minues north of you, and IIRC the frost line was 45" or so....... might want to check.
good luck.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Way too complicated for my taste. ...

Run the drain line into a sprinkling can and use it to water the plants.

This....
During the summers I help our school district mitigate mold concerns in our buildings as cheaply as possible. 5 yrs ago we used to run our A/C three hours a day. very expensive. Now we use dehumidifiers.

Anyway, since you are removing water from your greenhouse, you must be adding water someplace. I am not sure of your dehumidifier's properties, but if it is moveable,
1. Get a BIG container, we use 65 and 95 gallon recycling containers on wheels.
2. 3/4" plywood to use as a lid. Get a nice tablecloth to put over it to add to the decor of your greehouse.
3. Set the dh on it and drain it to the container.
4. Use the water to irrigate the plants.

With a small pump, you could run a dripline and have yourself a real life terrarium.
Even if you don't use the water to irrigate you would probably only have to empty it once a month or so.

I am originally from Marion. We had to go 48" minimum.

[Raymond Fries]

Water on the floor again today and outside there are ice cycles coming out between the drain pipe and the foam insulation. Shut it off till tomorrow. Called the support line and said to have the VP come to the house tomorrow and provide a planned solution.

Anyone know if it is electrical code for heat tape to be plugged into a GFCI? I do not have one.
I am tired of trying to research and see if what I have is what they installed.

[Myk Rian]

I've seen 2 types of heat tape. One looks like a woven cover, the other is plastic coated. I use the plastic for obvious reasons. You can get various lengths at the box stores.
I have 2 of them plugged into a GFCI and the other just plugged in.

[Mike Lassiter]

Water on the floor again today and outside there are ice cycles coming out between the drain pipe and the foam insulation. Shut it off till tomorrow. Called the support line and said to have the VP come to the house tomorrow and provide a planned solution.

Anyone know if it is electrical code for heat tape to be plugged into a GFCI? I do not have one.
I am tired of trying to research and see if what I have is what they installed.

Outside receptacles are suppose to be on a GFI circuit. I think it would be a good idea to have the heat tape on one, but you can install a GFI receptacle where it is plugged in and protect it. I think you indicated the heat tape was plugged in inside the wall so you could replace that receptacle since the heat tape is technically outside exposed to the weather.

I suspect your drain is not as I thought. I thought the pipe in the ground went to another drain pipe, but it seems it is merely a pipe in the ground that is filled with gravel and gravel packed around it so the water would soak into the ground. Not what I was describing because I thought the smaller pipe that the water is draining outside the wall in was run down into the ground into some other drain.

The heat tape IS getting wet as it is pictured, and for the contractor to be calling the manufacture to ask if that's OK seems dumb since that's already the case now. It seems to me the water is freezing in the bigger pipe that is in the ground while the smaller one the insulation and heat tape is on likely stops at the top of that bigger pipe. Water is not freezing in the smaller pipe with the heat tape but as the water continues to trickle out of it, it fills the larger pipe when the ground and pipe gets cold enough to freeze the water - it continues to freeze and get higher and higher until the pipe is filled with ice that the blocks the water from running out of the elbow on the smaller pipe and then the pipe fills and backs up into the inside.

I think as I already said the foam being gapped open at the top is a problem, but wrapping the foam insulation with duct tape tightly would close the gaps in the insulation and keep water from getting down in the gapped insulation. It really seems to me the only thing needing done is to dig the pipe in the ground up, and remove the gravel inside it so the drain water can go down below the ground freezing to soak in inside the pipe - then cover the top of the pipe so the cold air and rain cannot get inside it. This is not as complicated as it has seemed to become by far.

[Lee Schierer]

I would switch to Frostex heat tape. It is self limiting and can be submerged.

[Raymond Fries]

Well the installation manager was here today for a couple of hours. Turns out the heat tape was not even working. If he squeezed a certain spot on the plastic sleeve over the circuit board, the LED light would turn on and the cable would get warm. If he would let go, it would turn off. The ground is frozen and there isn't any digging it up until a thaw comes.

He wants to try to find a way to run the drain line internally. If not possible, they will redo the exterior drain when weather permits. This leaves me with monitoring and dumping a drip pan on the floor until we have a permanent solution. What a mess... Just dumped a pan and it fills in 2.3 hours.

I guess there is GFIC in the room. There is one on the first outlet in the room. The outlet three down line on the circuit is where the heat tape was plugged in. The guy said we were OK?

Thanks again for everyone's input.

On a side note, if I found the correct heat tape online as it appears that they installed, the install instructions say not to use it on drain pipes and not to run it through an exterior wall. The numbers on the tag match the Wrap On brand. This is a little troublesome. So if the solution is on the exterior, they better use the proper heat tape. He suggested running the heat tape inside of the drain line which would extend below the frost line.