Windshield washer fluid in dishwasher drain?

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gyrfalcon

gyrfalcon

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 25, 2007
1,836
Champlain Valley, Vermont
This was mentioned in passing in a thread in another forum and I wanted to ask for advice.

The drain for my dishwasher goes nearly horizontal for a few inches in the approx. 4-inch "crawlspace" between the kitchen floor and bare dirt. before it emerges into the cellar proper and bends down into the drainpipe proper. (Kitchen addition is circa 1900 on an 1850 house, which does have a stone foundation, but cellar is unfinished.) The placement of the water intake pipes on the other side of the dishwasher avoids this, but given the only possible placement of the dishwasher in the kitchen wing, it was this or nothing for the dishwasher drain.

So of course, it freezes when the weather gets really cold -- low teens or lower -- for a stretch. I can free it up by crawling under the counter and pouring small amounts of near boiling water into it several times over the course of a day or two, but it's a pain in the neck. (This is the only problem I have with pipes freezing in this old house, the previous owners of 50 years having long ago gotten the rest of the plumbing where it needs to be to avoid freezing.)

Would pouring some windshield washer deicer fluid into the drain before the thermometer is due to take a big dive be safe to do, worth doing? I have a septic system, so I don't want to pour too much of this stuff into the drain.

Anybody ever done this?
 
Any way of getting heat tape on the drain pipe?
As far as washer fluid I don't see it hurting to try it. It should not hurt your septic its a light cleaner and not soapy
 
boo boo said:
Any way of getting heat tape on the drain pipe?
As far as washer fluid I don't see it hurting to try it. It should not hurt your septic its a light cleaner and not soapy
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Thanks, but unfortunately, no. Perhaps if we'd put the heat tape on beforehand, but maybe not even then. It was a major struggle to get it through there as it was.
As for the septic, I'm not worried about the soap but whatever the anti-freeze element is. My septic system is very healthy and I'm eager to keep it that way, and I have no idea whether the antifreeze in this stuff is digestible by the system or perhaps even inhibits it. A little surely won't hurt, but I don't want to push it without knowing for sure what I'm doing.
 
fossil said:
Rather than w/s washer fluid, I'd check with a local R/V or camp trailer dealer...they sell special non-toxic anti-freeze for winterizing the water systems in those rigs.
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X2
 
1kzwoman said:
If you have to add something to it ,safest for septic,would be vodka/alcohol.IMHO. But RV antifreeze rather than washer fluid might be an option.
Also just packing around pipe with insulation may help.
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Thanks very much. We've got a plunge down to below zero overnight temps for a week coming tomorrow night, so I may try the vodka -- great idea! -- if I can't find the RV stuff in time.
 
fossil said:
Rather than w/s washer fluid, I'd check with a local R/V or camp trailer dealer...they sell special non-toxic anti-freeze for winterizing the water systems in those rigs.
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Sounds good, Fossil. Thanks very much.
 
Use the pink RV stuff. That is what I use to winterize my cabin and always does the job and is fairly benign to the septic system (and it is small).
 
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Jags said:
Use the pink RV stuff. That is what I use to winterize my cabin and always does the job and is fairly benign to the septic system (and it is small).
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Thank you. That's what I will do, assuming it's easy enough to find where I am. Failing that, I found a bottle of 100 proof vodka in the back of the liquor cabinet!
 
Hmmm...3 bucks for a gallon of pink stuff or 30 bucks for a liter of 100 proof vodka - your call. It should be pretty easy to find at any hardware or box store. Very common stuff.
 
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gyrfalcon said:
I'm very aware of this, but as far as I know, I do not have animals in my septic system.
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Actually there are many microbes in there breaking down the waste.
My point though was that although e. glycol may not be a good idea, p. glycol would probably be okay, and that you can buy it as Sierra vehicle coolant which may be less expensive than RV antifreeze.
Methanol, the main ingredient in windshield washing fluid, in moderate quantities in your septic should be fine. The bugs will eat it up.
 
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Jags said:
Hmmm...3 bucks for a gallon of pink stuff or 30 bucks for a liter of 100 proof vodka - your call. It should be pretty easy to find at any hardware or box store. Very common stuff.
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Hmmm. I am 40 miles from the nearest big box store, 20 miles from the nearest ordinary hardware store, and in a corner of the country heavily iced in and about to undergo more snow and more below-zero temperatures for the better part of a week. If the two small hardware stores I can get to on a trip up to town today don't carry it or are out, I will have to use what I have on hand. And FYI, a bottle of cheap 100 proof vodka doesn't come close to 30 bucks.
 
Call first. No reason to be out there if they don't have what you need.

Cheap vodka? Pour it down the drain.;)
 
semipro said:
Actually there are many microbes in there breaking down the waste.
My point though was that although e. glycol may not be a good idea, p. glycol would probably be okay, and that you can buy it as Sierra vehicle coolant which may be less expensive than RV antifreeze.
Methanol, the main ingredient in windshield washing fluid, in moderate quantities in you septic should be fine. The bugs will eat it up.
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Love them microbes! I treat them as gently as I can because they're doing a great job for me, which is why I'm concerned about what I put down the drain. Thanks for the good info about which kind of what does whatever to the microbes. That's exactly the info I was looking for. (It's made a bit more complicated because this stuff doesn't always say on the label what's in it. The jug of windshield washer deicer fluid I have has no info about the ingredients. Is it safe to assume that it's methanol? Or do different makers use different ingredients?)
 
Jags said:
Call first. No reason to be out there if they don't have what you need.

Cheap vodka? Pour it down the drain.;)
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Yeah, I wasn't planning on tossing a bottle of Stoli in there! (Although if push came to shove...) I have to go up to town today anyway before the Big Freeze-Up.
 
gyrfalcon said:
This was mentioned in passing in a thread in another forum and I wanted to ask for advice.

The drain for my dishwasher goes nearly horizontal for a few inches in the approx. 4-inch "crawlspace" between the kitchen floor and bare dirt. before it emerges into the cellar proper and bends down into the drainpipe proper. (Kitchen addition is circa 1900 on an 1850 house, which does have a stone foundation, but cellar is unfinished.) The placement of the water intake pipes on the other side of the dishwasher avoids this, but given the only possible placement of the dishwasher in the kitchen wing, it was this or nothing for the dishwasher drain.

So of course, it freezes when the weather gets really cold -- low teens or lower -- for a stretch. I can free it up by crawling under the counter and pouring small amounts of near boiling water into it several times over the course of a day or two, but it's a pain in the neck. (This is the only problem I have with pipes freezing in this old house, the previous owners of 50 years having long ago gotten the rest of the plumbing where it needs to be to avoid freezing.)

Would pouring some windshield washer deicer fluid into the drain before the thermometer is due to take a big dive be safe to do, worth doing? I have a septic system, so I don't want to pour too much of this stuff into the drain.

Anybody ever done this?
Click to expand...


Hey Falcon, make sure there is no cold air blowing on the pipe. Perhaps there is some air coming in from between those stones that make up your foundation. Moving freezing air hitting a pipe is a no no. See if you can put a light by the pipe and try to look in from the outside during night hours. There is also a foam insulating spray called Great Stuff that perhaps by completely surrounding the pipe you might have some luck. You may have to remove the dish washer, start over and reroute the pipe at a different angle. If it is as cold as you said then that pipe should have split by now. So if it hasn't split by now then perhaps the temp around the pipe doesn't quite reach outside temps, so maybe the spray will work. If you start over, try this: The area of dirt beneath the pipe needs to be dug away a little bit so that the new pipe can be angled downward. I guess when you are in the basement, you are looking at a dirt wall from where the pipe is coming from. So that dirt needs to be dug away a little, then maybe even, from the basement, try pushing a flexible hose into that area and snake it up into the kitchen. Or from the kitchen drop a string with a weight, and then from the basement grab it with a piece of wire, tie it to the hose and pull it up from the kitchen. Good luck.
 
Walmart has RV antifreeze, PEG is used in a lot of foods so the bugs should tolerate it.
 
hearthofgold said:
Hey Falcon, make sure there is no cold air blowing on the pipe. Perhaps there is some air coming in from between those stones that make up your foundation. Moving freezing air hitting a pipe is a no no. See if you can put a light by the pipe and try to look in from the outside during night hours. There is also a foam insulating spray called Great Stuff that perhaps by completely surrounding the pipe you might have some luck. You may have to remove the dish washer, start over and reroute the pipe at a different angle. If it is as cold as you said then that pipe should have split by now. So if it hasn't split by now then perhaps the temp around the pipe doesn't quite reach outside temps, so maybe the spray will work. If you start over, try this: The area of dirt beneath the pipe needs to be dug away a little bit so that the new pipe can be angled downward. I guess when you are in the basement, you are looking at a dirt wall from where the pipe is coming from. So that dirt needs to be dug away a little, then maybe even, from the basement, try pushing a flexible hose into that area and snake it up into the kitchen. Or from the kitchen drop a string with a weight, and then from the basement grab it with a piece of wire, tie it to the hose and pull it up from the kitchen. Good luck.
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Thanks very much for the knowledgeable advice. I don't think redoing the whole thing is in the cards, but I'll certainly save your advice for future reference in case it should be. (What you describe about threading the hose is similar to what we did do to get it hooked up at the time.) The cellar walls, though, are stone, so how much digging can be done there I'm unsure of.

The cellar is not airtight, but it's never as cold as the outside air, and the stretch where the drain pipe goes through the "crawlspace" is quite short, so 5 years or so on, the pvc is still intact, knock on wood. I'm planning to get the cellar better tightened up this coming year, which should improve things a good bit. The saving grace, so to speak, is that the boiler down there does come on for a few hours overnight when it's really cold, which keeps the cellar from getting too far into the deep freeze.

Thanks again. Valuable advice appreciated.
 
peakbagger said:
Walmart has RV antifreeze, PEG is used in a lot of foods so the bugs should tolerate it.
Click to expand...
I'm 40-some miles from a Walmart, but I did find some this morning at the Agway up in town and poured a couple cups of it in. It'll be a couple days of near zero and below zero temperatures before I need to run the dishwasher again, but I'll report back for the record how it goes.
 
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Interesting to hear of a dishwasher going straight to a main drain. Typically, they plumb in to the kitchen sink drain and most commonly the kitchen sink garbage disposal. I don't suppose there is any way to reroute the drain to the kitchen sink? Barring that, is it a trap which is freezing or just the horizontal section of the pipe? If it's the horizontal section, any chance you can give it a slight slope? May require re-working the attachment to the main drain, but even a small amount of slope would allow it to completely drain and may eliminate the freezing.

Maybe things you've already thought of, but just thinking out loud on ways to avoid the PITA of the antifreeze routine.
 
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