Above-Floor Plumbing Brings Calm after Devastating Flood

Instead of simply vacuuming the water out and forgetting it ever happened, the homeowner decided to pluck an opportunity from the disaster.

The home was built 50 years ago, and the basement was finished roughly 10 years after that. When the owner moved in during the mid-1990s, he noticed that the washing machine drained across the concrete in what was a subfloor with an elevated landing at the bottom of the basement steps.

Having never liked this layout, he had the opportunity to completely redesign his basement’s plumbing after the flood.

One option was to drill through the concrete and run pipe underneath, spanning the 10-foot distance from the washing machine to the drain line. The problem: Breaking through that much concrete would be time-consuming, messy and expensive.

However, having worked as a plumbing distributor for 16 years, the homeowner was familiar with a cleaner, more cost-effective solution to his plumbing problem—an above-floor drainage pump.

A Proven Solution

Above-floor plumbing technology, which was developed more than 60 years ago by Saniflo, allows a bathroom to be installed practically anywhere. Different above-floor plumbing solutions exist for different applications—be they commercial or residential—but the principle of wastewater being pumped to a drain line above the floor remains the same.

In this case, the most appropriate above-floor product for the laundry application ended up being the Saniswift drain pump. It is designed to pump waste water from sinks, washing machines, showers and dishwashers up to 14 vertical feet and 140 horizontal feet (or a combination of the two).

With the help of his brother, a certified Master Plumber, the homeowner went about ripping out the old pipe running from the washing machine to the drain line and installing the pump. The unit pumps waste water up eight feet from the laundry tray, above a doorway, and 10 feet across the ceiling to the drain line. The project required removing the old concrete landing, which was no longer necessary.

The second plumbing aspect of the basement renovation involved moving a kitchen sink to an area where traditional drainage would have proven difficult. Conventional drainage was not an option because the distance and height from the drain to the new sink would not have allowed for the required grade, or slope.

As a result, the homeowner again chose a drain pump—this time the Sanivite. Ideal for most gray water applications, the pump quietly discharges up to 16 vertical feet and 150 horizontal feet (or a combination of the two). In this application, the unit pumps the effluent up 4.5 feet.

Both installations progressed smoothly, and the units performed optimally. With his recent basement renovation, the usability of above-floor plumbing technology is something the homeowner can now vouch for personally. After all, a wholesaler who installs his own products is “putting his money where his mouth is” and can be the ultimate reassurance to a plumbing contractor deciding whether or not to try something new.

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