DWV Concern: Washing Machine Drain by John Bouldin

This month, I’d like to take a look at a photo from a recent inspection involving a DWV system for a home built in 1939. This is just one more example of how subtle some home inspection issues can be. Looking at the upper oval in the attached photo, we can see that the main sewer drain pipe exits the basement foundation wall at chest height, while in the foreground oval, the drain for the washing machine goes straight through the floor slab. There is no ejector pump in the house, which strongly suggests that the drain for the washing machine does not, and never did, drain into the sanitary sewer. Most likely, it simply drains into the gravel layer beneath the floor slab. I probably looked at this scenario ten times before noticing this. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I find that taking extra time during the inspection just looking for patterns and irregularities often helps to discover less-obvious issues.

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