Not sure if this belongs under this topic as I don't know much about this. Why would someone have several large dry wells and grit chambers all over the lot of a luxury house? What do they do? Tried looking it up but something came up about a sewage plant. The house is near the ocean, but so is my house and I don't have those. Are these optional, or would there be something about the lot that makes these necessary? Thanks!
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Dry wells and grit chambers?
- Thread starter Carol
- Start date
The large dry wells are recent and the city supplies water and sewage removal. It's a VERY affluent area. in view of that, why would someone put those in? I thought I read something about preventing flooding and absorbing overflow? Not sure what a grit chamber is for. Both seem very odd. Would anyone here know?
fatboy
Administrator
Welcome
All new terms to me............
All new terms to me............
Francis Vineyard
Registered User
I've known a few affluent homeowners that have opted out of connecting to public utilities to be off the grid; even if it's just sewer to avoid paying the taxes and fees in the long run it pencils out.
tmurray
SAWHORSE
We have some drywells here. They are basically to provide some storm water detention on site where it is impractical or impossible to connect to an existing municipal storm system.
Grit chambers cause water to slow down so that suspended fine particles (like sand or gravel) drop out of the water stream. Guessing that the grit chambers are upstream of the drywells so that any fine particles are removed before they can clog up the drywells. the Grit chambers are usually much easier to clean. The objective in most situations is that there is a net zero increase to water run off from a lot.
Someone had a civil engineer design their storm water management system.
Grit chambers cause water to slow down so that suspended fine particles (like sand or gravel) drop out of the water stream. Guessing that the grit chambers are upstream of the drywells so that any fine particles are removed before they can clog up the drywells. the Grit chambers are usually much easier to clean. The objective in most situations is that there is a net zero increase to water run off from a lot.
Someone had a civil engineer design their storm water management system.
mark handler
SAWHORSE
tmurry got it.
Storm water control and filtering, based on the clean water act.
Storm water control and filtering, based on the clean water act.
JBI
Registered User
Shore areas (like south shore of Long Island) use dry wells for storm water management. The sandy soils allow the storm water to collect in the dry wells to reduce surface runoff and the sandy sub-soils allow the collected water to filter into the ground below the top soil. In upstate areas the use of detention/retention ponds are more common due to denser (clay) soils.
The grit chambers are new to me, but as noted by mark h, tmurray seems to have it correct.
The grit chambers are new to me, but as noted by mark h, tmurray seems to have it correct.
Paul Sweet
Sawhorse
EPA tightened their stormwater regulations a few years ago and required states to follow suit. The new regulations are really impacting our campus and college building design. I'm not sure how far they extend to single family residential.
Robert
Registered User
Varies by jurisdiction. Impervious surface calculations are becoming the norm for residential projects. In an odd twist on a new hillside addition, I had to take the foundation drainage groundwater (perf. pipe) into a new sump pump up to the street stormwater drainage. Ironically, the stormwater (downspouts) were allowed to dissipate onsite.
conarb
Registered User
Could they be a Geothermal heating system? A friend did a $6 million addition and remodel in Palo Alto, the house had 27 geothermal wells in the small yard, inside the house there was a mechanical room that looked like the boiler room of the Queen Mary. the system cost $375,000 as I remember but it was "Green"!