Good Morning, All.

I discovered last evening that all of our basement appliances are draining into a sump pit. This includes our washing machine, condensate pump, and dehumidifier. The sump pump then drains into the grass in our backyard. We live in a 5-year-old home in a condominium association within a small borough, population 5,000. I assume that all of our condos were build the same way.

Is this normal or standard? I was just surprised and it didn't seem quite right to be dumping all of our laundry detergent into our grass.

... any thoughts? Thanks!

Where do you live? Codes vary from place to place but this is not allowed where I live

This not allowed where I live either.

Your condos and codes are either well ahead of the "green" curve and you have yourself a grey water system or you are against code.

Have you looked at your neighbors property to verify if they actually were built the same way? What kind of washer machine do you use? A top loader or front loader? Many of the front loading machines built now only use a couple of gallons of water per wash so it may not be such a big deal and they also use "better" low sudsing environmentally friendly detergents so your grass won't get a build up of phosphates/toxins.

If you are against code you should be able to access a drain line from the basement space and convert the sump pump station to a lift station area and pump the water up to the "actual" sewer lines.

Let us know what you find out.

Good luck!

I live in the borough of Hallam, PA. Thanks for the comments, guys. I'll do a bit more digging.