Oh, I asked for the pad. I paid for the pad. COTH said GET A PAD! COTH was right!
One other thing to consider is, where will the manure and hair that the horses drop, go? If it goes down the drain you’ll have clogged drains pretty quick. Filters and clean-out may be needed.
For the one user, few horse set up like mine, I don’t worry about soap going out into the grass as I rarely use it. I probably wash my car more often than I do my horses (with soap). Most times, I’m just hosing and scraping. However, a commercial establishment would have a lot more use, and a lot more eyes on them I’m sure, requiring a different way to deal with the runoff. I know of one boarding barn in my area that got fined and had to redo their wash area for just such a reason, as they were letting it just run into the storm ditches and got caught. The redo for them very well may have cost tens of thousands of dollars.
You’d walk back to the house just to pee?
:winkgrin:
No lakes, streams terribly nearby. Not really. The whole property slopes very very gently back and then I had a big elevated pad built for the barn so that water would roll away from the barn. So far so good, except in CRAZY driving rain no water gets in–and even that little bit SHOULD stop once I get concrete in my aisle so there’s no a huge gap between my sliding door and the “floor,” which is now just dirt.
I swear you must have been in my head when you did your barn - it’s ALL just like mine!
My barn had a dirt floor. I wanted to pour concrete for the cross-tie grooming area and also wanted a drain. We dug a huge hole, big enough to sink a big 50 gallon barrel. We had drilled lots of drain holes in the bottom and sides of the barrel. We then placed the PVC drain pipe in the middle of the barrel and filled both the barrel and the 3 or 4 inch area outside the barrel where we had overdug with stone. At this point we left the PVC long, higher than the top of the barrel. The concrete was poured and sloped slightly towards the drain. Once set - PVC cut level and steel drain cover dropped in place. It has worked perfectly for me. Every once in a while i have had to reach down in there and pull out hair/hay whatever - maybe once a season. Maybe once a year when i have used it a bit and it is draining slowly, i pour some bleach in it.
When i bathe a horse i can do it with two 5 gallon buckets (i heat water in the barn with a drop in the bucket wand) and still run hose water to rinse legs and tail. The drain takes all that.
Not even close to code, but it has worked out perfectly for 20 years for me.
My barn is full concrete and the bathroom, washing machine ect run out to a septic system but the wash stall goes into a dry well I’m pretty sure it’s called. We thought all the water from horse washing would overwhelm the septic system, so we did it separate. It’s 12x12 too.
The concrete slopes to the center where there is a 3x3 or so metal sheet with holes in it (I have mats overtop of the whole washrack so you can’t see this). Below that metal cover is a 3’ deep maybe square metal box with a perforated bottom. Below that is a gravel sump pit. I think that’s all you need really. Since it’s in the centre, it will be sheltered from the frost by your existing barn slab, so don’t have to go 8’ below the frost line, only 4’ down or so. Every so often I lift the mats and the metal cover and clean out the hair and all that. My washrack is used weekly if not daily and never a problem.
I’m not sure if that makes sense or not…
I just got a quote (not from a plumber) from a GC who proposed just putting a drain in with a pipe underneath sending it out away from the barn and down the hill. I am going to get some other quotes and consult with my awesome well guys-- but I guess I’m not the only one who thinks maybe this can be done simply.
The quote was about $7,500 but that also includes the 12x48 aisle.
That sounds reasonable. MIne wasn’t that much, but the 12x12 wash stall was only with a 12x36 aisle, and I think concrete was cheaper then too. The 12x12 stall costs more per sqft because of the extra work to get the slope done correct, as well as the obvious additional factors.
