The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Garage Drain Issue

We moved into a new house that has a 30x42 shop that is probably 10-15 years old (Pictures later). There is a drain in the shop floor that may be backing up and spewing water on the floor after a rain. The center of the shop, close to the drain, gets wet while the perimeter is damp to dry. The building has steel roof, ceiling and siding. One long wall has older exposed R-11 insulation, while the opposite wall has some foam backed with paper for insulation. One short side has the garage doors and its opposite side is insulated. I do not know what is above the ceiling for insulation, but I don’t think this is condensation problem. I have thought about surrounding the drain with sandbags (play sand) to really determine if that’s it.

Where do these drains typically discharge and can it be pumped or cleaned (augured)? The house has a septic tank, but would the shop drain be hooked into that?

I had my S-10 parked where most of the mess was. It’s possible it has a new leak, but I have moved it outside to better monitor what’s happening.

usually floor drains will hook to the same thing the house perimeter drain does, which shouldn't be a septic system ... if you don't have sanitary sewer, you prolly don't have storm drains either, so I'd suspect they just put the floor drains into a 'rock box', where the water table will determine how well it drains

I'd want to find out where it goes, even if it has to be dug up, you might end up wanting to plug it, from what I've been hearing about the weather in Indiana

Bill

you may want to check with your local inspector about local codes. He may be the one that inspected the garage when it was built 15 years ago. Around here the drain simply is a 5 gallon bucket to catch run-off and allow to evaporate. in some cases it goes to a gravel bed under the garage (no longer legal in many areas)