Water softener drain

[SuperPav]

Looking for a bit of practical advice...

 

When we did our understairs cupboard (where all the plumbing manifolds and water main etc. are) we put in a 28mm pipe to the outside of the house for a D2 discharge pipe. Things have changed and the UVC is now going elsewhere, so we sitll have the 28mm pipe.

 

I want to put a water softener (one of the twintec things), so assumed I can just use the 28mm pipe for the discharge. However, having got the unit, it says I need two separate drains for a discharge, and an overflow..

 

Given the only location to put it is in this ground floor cupboard which is the middle of the house and there is no soil/waste pipe other than the 28mm one, am I completely snookered, or can I put both of them into the 28mm pipe either directly or indirectly with separation etc.? Really want some soft water

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, SuperPav said:

Looking for a bit of practical advice...

 

When we did our understairs cupboard (where all the plumbing manifolds and water main etc. are) we put in a 28mm pipe to the outside of the house for a D2 discharge pipe. Things have changed and the UVC is now going elsewhere, so we sitll have the 28mm pipe.

 

I want to put a water softener (one of the twintec things), so assumed I can just use the 28mm pipe for the discharge. However, having got the unit, it says I need two separate drains for a discharge, and an overflow..

 

Given the only location to put it is in this ground floor cupboard which is the middle of the house and there is no soil/waste pipe other than the 28mm one, am I completely snookered, or can I put both of them into the 28mm pipe either directly or indirectly with separation etc.? Really want some soft water

Your issue will be the rate of discharge when it’s regenerating. 
 

How long is the run of 28mm pipe, and where does it terminate? 
 

I’ll assume the worst and advise you make a ‘table’ for the softener as you’ll need to have some gravity fall for this to work reliably (or at all….). 
 

This is how I plumbed the last one in, where the pipe had to run some distance horizontally, caveat being that the traps were then much higher off the floor. The white square is the ‘softener stool’ that the client made for it to sit on. Left the underside open so bags of salt cubes could be stored under it to use up the space.

 

 

The two waterless traps have 21.5mm reducers in the top, and the 2 hoses off the unit just poke into those by about 70-80mm or so. 
 

FWIW, there are few instances where you can install the softener directly on to the floor. 

[-rick-]

Nice pipework.

 

Sorry this is off-topic, but what's going on here?

 

[Andeh]

Pretty sure the two drain thing is to ensure that if there is ever a blockage or excessive flow, it cant back up into the over flow. 

 

We have it going into two drains, that then combine into the same as it exist the building into an external drain. No issues in 2.5 years of operation. 

[Russell griffiths]

3 hours ago, -rick- said:

Nice pipework.

 

Sorry this is off-topic, but what's going on here?

 

What do you want to know 

the brass stop cock is the incoming main, it’s got the couple of turns in the pipe so the tap is easier to reach instead of it being above the cylinder, as that cylinder is probably 1500high. 
 

the white bit of hep pipe is the temporary pipe because the water softener isn’t there. This allows the house to have water while the softener was removed so we could get to do the pipe work above it without dropping solder all over the new softener. 

[-rick-]

9 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

the brass stop cock is the incoming main, it’s got the couple of turns in the pipe so the tap is easier to reach instead of it being above the cylinder, as that cylinder is probably 1500high. 

 

Suspected it might be something like that, just seemed like a lot of work to do that vs putting it somewhere to the right of the cyclinder below the PRV (though can't see what else it feeds before that).

 

9 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

the white bit of hep pipe is the temporary pipe because the water softener isn’t there. This allows the house to have water while the softener was removed so we could get to do the pipe work above it without dropping solder all over the new softener. 

 

Gotcha, no permanent bypass/isolation option for that? Other installations I've seen have that hard plumbed.

 

Edit: and while I'm at it, why two TRVs? Two setpoints or capacity?

Edited February 2 by -rick-

[Nickfromwales]

50 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Gotcha, no permanent bypass/isolation option for that? Other installations I've seen have that hard plumbed.

 

Edit: and while I'm at it, why two TRVs? Two setpoints or capacity?

Factory bypass came with the softener. 
 

TMV 1 does all ‘hot’ outlets at 50°, and TMV2 does wash hand basins (on a hot return loop) at 46°. Cooler flow for the recirculating loop = lower losses. 

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, Andeh said:

Pretty sure the two drain thing is to ensure that if there is ever a blockage or excessive flow, it cant back up into the over flow. 

 

We have it going into two drains, that then combine into the same as it exist the building into an external drain. No issues in 2.5 years of operation. 

The two separate waterless traps with a decent bit of distance (head) keeps that in check. Drains as shown are for 1x overflow, and 1x regen output. One does nothing for the rest of its life, the other pukes water out daily, in large quantities, for the regen.