Condensate Drain Pipe

[Fiona Brick]

Hi All - advices appreciated. We're new to all this and still gaining an understanding of our unit and it's installation which we had done professionally. I'm going to post a pic of our condensate drain pipe internally - pipe sitting loosely into 1.5 " white pipe which feeds into a brown 4" pipe. This 4 " pipe runs internally to externally and was set in concrete and insulation at foundation stages. It does not seem to link up to anything or have a soak pit etc. outside. It's the one furthest on the left in the pic.  There also do not appear to be any traps internally. Is this normal? I'm concerned re rodents/ice formation/cold air ingress. 

[ProDave]

If the hose is your condensate pipe, where does the white pipe branching off to the side go?

[Fiona Brick]

Kind of runs nowhere at the moment....it's installed for connection of a possible back up air to air unit...

[JohnMo]

Little confused. Is the reinforced plastic pipe connected to the MVHR?

 

If that's the case, it isn't correct. The MVHR drain should feed into a dry trap, then be an airtight join to drain system. Similarly the A2A connection should be done the same way.

 

It looks like your brown drain pipes outside need connecting - 2 parties not talking to each other? No

[Fiona Brick]

5 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Little confused. Is the reinforced plastic pipe connected to the MVHR?

 

If that's the case, it isn't correct. The MVHR drain should feed into a dry trap, then be an airtight join to drain system. Similarly the A2A connection should be done the same way.

 

It looks like your brown drain pipes outside need connecting - 2 parties not talking to each other? No

 

 

This  is the inside of the unit where you can see the piping which i presume has an overflow tray in the upper section. It's an MVHR with integrated 2kw heat pump and 180l hot water cylinder. 

One of the pipes is where the WiFi comes in - ones on the right, one is where power for a shed and electric gate will come in red ones left and middle. Middle brown is currently blanked. That's why I'm confused with condensate drain as none of the red are waste pipes to connect condensate to 🤔

[Tom]

If the condensate drains anything like my unit (Vent Axia) then it will be under negative pressure, i.e it will be wanting to suck air up the pipe. This is why it must be connected to a dry trap - to stop it sucking air up, and thereby allowing the water drain down the pipe from the unit. 

[Nickfromwales]

So, basically, if you blew down the white pipe it would blow out the end of the pipe externally, which is not great at all.

 

You need the traps as stated, or a sealed connection from the flexible hose to the rigid white pipe (and then use the excess hose inside the machine to form a U bend (trap) there). 
 

You can see these types of traps here, 1x for a heating system discharge and 2x for the softener. 
 

 

These look like a balloon end inside and let water out but not draughts etc in.

 

[Nickfromwales]

Connecting the groundworks outside is another subject, and would need feedback from whoever put them in to see if this is an intended soak away or the opposing pipe is connected to a drain system.   

[Conor]

2 hours ago, Fiona Brick said:

Hi All - advices appreciated. We're new to all this and still gaining an understanding of our unit and it's installation which we had done professionally. I'm going to post a pic of our condensate drain pipe internally - pipe sitting loosely into 1.5 " white pipe which feeds into a brown 4" pipe. This 4 " pipe runs internally to externally and was set in concrete and insulation at foundation stages. It does not seem to link up to anything or have a soak pit etc. outside. It's the one furthest on the left in the pic.  There also do not appear to be any traps internally. Is this normal? I'm concerned re rodents/ice formation/cold air ingress. 

It looks like the guys have tapped in to a service conduit rather than a waste pipe. That pit is not part of the waste water system.

[G and J]

40 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

So, basically, if you blew down the white pipe it would blow out the end of the pipe externally, which is not great at all.

 

You need the traps as stated, or a sealed connection from the flexible hose to the rigid white pipe (and then use the excess hose inside the machine to form a U bend (trap) there). 
 

You can see these types of traps here, 1x for a heating system discharge and 2x for the softener. 
 

 

These look like a balloon end inside and let water out but not draughts etc in.

 

Does each drain/tundish require its own dry trap?

[Fiona Brick]

3 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

So, basically, if you blew down the white pipe it would blow out the end of the pipe externally, which is not great at all.

 

You need the traps as stated, or a sealed connection from the flexible hose to the rigid white pipe (and then use the excess hose inside the machine to form a U bend (trap) there). 
 

You can see these types of traps here, 1x for a heating system discharge and 2x for the softener. 
 

 

These look like a balloon end inside and let water out but not draughts etc in.

 

Should this have been checked/picked up on when the unit was being commissioned?

[Fiona Brick]

3 hours ago, Conor said:

It looks like the guys have tapped in to a service conduit rather than a waste pipe. That pit is not part of the waste water system.

I think you're on the money Conor, not sure why the installer did this. There's a sink outlet on the other side of the machine connected to the waste water system that should probably have been used....

[Fiona Brick]

2 minutes ago, Fiona Brick said:

Should this have been checked/picked up on when the unit was being commissioned?

As Conor said, it does appear that these are service pipes and a service gulley and are in fact nothing to do with waste water. Not sure why the condensate pipe was run into these and especially when run with no trap etc. 

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Fiona Brick said:

As Conor said, it does appear that these are service pipes and a service gulley and are in fact nothing to do with waste water. Not sure why the condensate pipe was run into these and especially when run with no trap etc. 

I'm assuming 'reduced intelligence' lol.

 

Was anyone around to guide these installers, such as yourself or a project manager? If not then you'll be holding yourself accountable methinks, as otherwise they could have just legitimately mistaken this for a waste connection. The lack of traps etc just demonstrates the reduced intelligence to a T.

Mixture of oops, and a lack of technical GAF here, so just get a plumber to connect the trap to the correct pipe and move on with life  

[Fiona Brick]

14 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

I'm assuming 'reduced intelligence' lol.

 

Was anyone around to guide these installers, such as yourself or a project manager? If not then you'll be holding yourself accountable methinks, as otherwise they could have just legitimately mistaken this for a waste connection. The lack of traps etc just demonstrates the reduced intelligence to a T.

Mixture of oops, and a lack of technical GAF here, so just get a plumber to connect the trap to the correct pipe and move on with life  

I agree Nick and this is what we were happy to do.

However, when I saw water at the base of the unit, I contacted the agent for the unit who designed and commissioned the system. I didn't know where the water was coming from initially. They said one of their plumbers would be passing and would call in. He identified air tightness measures had blocked the pipe outside which caused the water. We were told to contact a plumber to re route the condensate pipe to the sink outlet and put a trap on it. We then got a bill from them for 180 as they said its not a unit related issue. We didn't expect this bill given that we're going to be paying a plumber to reroute the pipe anyway. It's a bit frustrating as I feel they should have checked this on commissioning or at design stage. The plumber who installed is one of their contractors and was involved from planning stage. Anyway, as you said, easier to just get on with it at this stage. I'm learning more and more everyday, unfortunately some of the info is being learned too late 😪 

[Nickfromwales]

12 minutes ago, Fiona Brick said:

I agree Nick and this is what we were happy to do.

However, when I saw water at the base of the unit, I contacted the agent for the unit who designed and commissioned the system. I didn't know where the water was coming from initially. They said one of their plumbers would be passing and would call in. He identified air tightness measures had blocked the pipe outside which caused the water. We were told to contact a plumber to re route the condensate pipe to the sink outlet and put a trap on it. We then got a bill from them for 180 as they said its not a unit related issue. We didn't expect this bill given that we're going to be paying a plumber to reroute the pipe anyway. It's a bit frustrating as I feel they should have checked this on commissioning or at design stage. The plumber who installed is one of their contractors and was involved from planning stage. Anyway, as you said, easier to just get on with it at this stage. I'm learning more and more everyday, unfortunately some of the info is being learned too late 😪 

Contest the bill and ask for the cost of the traps and the fitting of to be deducted from it, if you've not yet paid it.....