Waste Water Treatment

We are now on track to live in the shop for a while.  The space that I had set aside for a cleaner, conditioned work space looked good enough, when I framed it in, to live in (for a while).  I had the foresight to rough in a bathroom from the start.  If we didn't plan to live in there, the bathroom space would have had a utility sink and a floor drain shower.  I figured I could get away with a simple grey water drain since it would never have anything worse than soapy water.  But now that it will serve as a real bathroom, with a toilet (I did have the foresight to rough that in, too, even if it was never used), we needed a real septic system.

My son-in-law, Jason's construction company has had a long relationship with James Killian of Kil-Con (kilcon.com) for waste water treatment systems for their projects.  He sells and installs the AquaKlear aerobic treatment system (aquaklear.net).  James was willing to give us a great deal on a system and work with us, letting Jason do the excavation and me do the main drain pipe.  He supervised our work and did the final hook-up and installation of the aerator.  Our contact at the Jackson County Health Department, Steve Williams, was great as well.  He came out to the site to check it out the day after I applied for a permit, and found the time to watch our installation even though it got pushed up a day shorter.

On this last trip, I also completed the water rough-in.  Since space is so valuable in the apartment, I installed the water heater in the loft above the bathroom.  It is enclosed in an insulated box; framed and insulated like a miniature room.  I got a start on the electric, as well.  The aerobic waste water system required a dedicated circuit, so that had to be done ASAP.  One other SUPER important thing I did was to hook-up a stereo tuner and Sirius radio with speakers at each end of the loft.  Now we can dance while we work.