Darkroom with running water, no drain

Mats_A · Mar 9, 2010

The room I have planned for my darkroom has at the moment electricity and heat. That's good. What's missing is water in and out.
Getting water in would not be a big problem. On the other side of a drywall I have both hot and cold water pipes. Couple of holes, some fittings ... no problem.
But drainage is a bigger problem. No obviuos way to hook up a drain.
So are there any standard solutions for this particular problem? A big tank under the sink? Something else?
Advice pls.

r

mjs · Mar 9, 2010

Water is heavy and a pain in the rear to have to shlepp around. I know, as my first darkroom was in a garage and I carried water out to it in 5 gal containers. Easy to get rid of, though: just pour it outside. Your's is a similar problem. If there's just no way to drain the water to a sump or other existing drain, then you'll have to save it in a container of some sort and carry it out. Water's heavy: about 5 gal. US (19 liters,) is heavy enough for repeated carrying I think; or at least, it was for me. I'd advise washing somewhere with running water and a drain, since that's where most of the water usage comes from.

Is there some way to run a pipe outside the room? Perhaps you could use a submersible pump to pump it from a storage container, maybe through a hose?

Mike

Craig Swensson · Mar 9, 2010

Fish tank pump, pump it back through the wall to what i presume is a sink on the other side of the drywall, or mount your darkroom sink higher and let gravity do the work?

frobozz · Mar 9, 2010

They make little self-contained sump-with-a-pump setups for basement sinks and washing machines. Like this:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Of course you still need somewhere to put the water you're pumping out, but is there a sink on the other side of that wall along with the water pipes? You could just pump it into there maybe? More cheaply, you could just use the 5 gallon bucket idea, but with a little pump to get rid of the water as needed, instead of lugging the bucket.

Duncan

Mats_A · Mar 9, 2010

I have this additional problem called winter. Half the year I can not dump water outside as it will freeze.
I know you can leave FB-paper in a water bath and wash them later. What about RC? My experience is that an RC paper left in water will start to come apart at the corners. So that means I can not wash an RC-paper later. Or can I?

r

MattKing · Mar 9, 2010

shimoda said:
I have this additional problem called winter. Half the year I can not dump water outside as it will freeze.
I know you can leave FB-paper in a water bath and wash them later. What about RC? My experience is that an RC paper left in water will start to come apart at the corners. So that means I can not wash an RC-paper later. Or can I?

r

RC paper can be rinsed for a few (30?) seconds in a water bath and then allowed to air dry in something like a dish draining rack. Then, at the end of your session, you can wash the RC again for one to two minutes, and use the rack to dry it for good.

Just be sure to change the water bath regularly.

Matt

Mats_A · Mar 9, 2010

pakeha said:
Fish tank pump, pump it back through the wall to what i presume is a sink on the other side of the drywall, or mount your darkroom sink higher and let gravity do the work?

Unfortunately the room on the other side is a heating central. Has piping but no drainage

r

frobozz · Mar 9, 2010

That would be unusual to have no drain at all. Where does the condensation from the airconditioning go? Where does the emergency pressure release valve on the water heater send its output? Usually wherever there is water, there is at least some sort of floor drain to handle such things.

Duncan

Mats_A · Mar 9, 2010

frobozz said:
That would be unusual to have no drain at all. Where does the condensation from the airconditioning go? Where does the emergency pressure release valve on the water heater send its output? Usually wherever there is water, there is at least some sort of floor drain to handle such things.

Duncan

You might be right. Have to check that. Thank you. But no airconditioning. Only a heating central with a big heat exchanger.

r

glbeas · Mar 9, 2010

Do you have any idea where the drains are in the house? It may be possible to use a grey water pump to boost the water to an overhead line if one can be found within a reasonable distance. My darkroom is plumbed like that and the pump lifts the water 11 feet to an overhead drain line coming from the washer on the main floor overhead. It's pretty easy to cut and patch in a tee joint if it's a plastic pipe.

Rick A · Mar 9, 2010

glbeas said:
Do you have any idea where the drains are in the house? It may be possible to use a grey water pump to boost the water to an overhead line if one can be found within a reasonable distance. My darkroom is plumbed like that and the pump lifts the water 11 feet to an overhead drain line coming from the washer on the main floor overhead. It's pretty easy to cut and patch in a tee joint if it's a plastic pipe.

I hope you put a check-valve on that line, so as not to get any back flow from the washer into your darkroom, also keeps any water remaining in the line from draining back.

Rick

Mats_A · Mar 9, 2010

glbeas said:
Do you have any idea where the drains are in the house? It may be possible to use a grey water pump to boost the water to an overhead line if one can be found within a reasonable distance. My darkroom is plumbed like that and the pump lifts the water 11 feet to an overhead drain line coming from the washer on the main floor overhead. It's pretty easy to cut and patch in a tee joint if it's a plastic pipe.

Only one floor so no overhead pipes.

r

EdSawyer · Mar 10, 2010

The other issue with a self-contained sump pump pumping to an overhead drain line (like in a basement) is you should really tie the sump pump into the main stack vent, which is usually a pain in the ass. You can probably use a popper type vent though they are sometimes not recommended. Thinking of something like a Saniflow unit here.

-Ed

removed account4 · Mar 10, 2010

rc paper was created for very fast wash times.
as matt said, it takes no time at all to do a short rinse.
instead of a dish rack, string a close line, twine, framers wire or ??
and get some clothes pins.
it isn't hard to do darkroom work without running water.
just do 5 print "runs" and then a wash/fix/wash fix remove final wash.
use fixer remover to reduce your wash times, and soak your prints and films
to leach the fix out.

have fun!
john

Wayne · Mar 10, 2010

In my second story darkroom I hook a garden hose to my homemade sink's drain and run the hose down the wall (there were already boiler pipes there so I didnt even have to drill) out the garage window below the darkroom and out into the yard. This was only for wash/rinse water-I dispose of chemicals elsewhere. It helps to have a yard, if you live in an apartment this probably wont help. I did this year round. The ice pond that develops is usually under a lot of snow anyway.

Steve Smith · Mar 10, 2010

For the waste, something like this: http://www.saniflo.co.uk/ can pump it to a drain through small bore pipe.

Steve.

GeorgesGiralt · Mar 11, 2010

Hi !
I faced the same situation as yours as my darkroom is a couple of metres under the sewage pipe of the house. And is about 20 feet from it.
I bought a PVC box made of a section of 400 mm tubing closed at one end with a PVC hot welded plate. Into this box I put a submersible pump with an automatic level sensor to start and stop the pump. My sink drains into this box and when the level of the water reach the treshold the pump starts. It flushes the water into PVC pressure pipe (which looks like plain pipe, just a little bigger and plastic) which goes to the sewage pipe. As the tubing has to follow the walls, it is about 50 feet long and the pump has no problem putting the water that high or far.
I'm very satisfied with my setup, the only drawback is that I jump every time the pump start because it is a bit noisy in my super silence environment when I process sheet filp in the dark....
Hope this helps
P.S. feel free to ask me the reference of the pump or other information you need.

jeffreyg · Mar 11, 2010

You don't really need running water for the "dark" part of processing film and printing although it is more convenient. You could wash film and prints in another room that has running water and a drain. My first darkroom was in a room with no water or drain. I did the washing in our kitchen -- it worked. Fortunately I now have a "real" darkroom.

Dave Starr · Mar 11, 2010

Is the darkroom in the basement? In mine, I ran plastic tubing from the sink drain fittings to the floor drain on the other side of the wall. I connect my FB print washer to the laundry tub faucet & it's drain line goes into the cleanout about 3 ft away.

BetterSense · Mar 11, 2010

I leave RC soaking in water for up to an hour and have no trouble, but I always trim my print edges off before final mounting anyway.

Martin Aislabie · Mar 13, 2010

shimoda said:
What about RC? My experience is that an RC paper left in water will start to come apart at the corners. So that means I can not wash an RC-paper later. Or can I?

r

I don't have running water in my darkroom either.

So at the end of the Dev/Stop/Fix line of trays are 2 further trays Wash Tray 1 & Wash Tray 2

Even with RC, I don't usually empty out the prints from Wash Tray 2 for up to a couple of hours and have never had any problems with delamination (with Ilford Paper)

The only time I have had delamination with RC is when I had wacked the corner of a print (dropped it ) causing it to crumple and after a couple of hours it started to how signs of lifting

I still rinse the prints when I get them back to running water.

I need a break every once in a while (a pit stop and coffee) so this fits in with my darkroom workflow.

At the same time as I wash the prints, I empty Wash Tray 1, move Wash Tray2 to become the new Wash Tray1 and rinse and re-fill Wash Tray1 to become my new Wash Tray2. Repeat endlessly.

Martin

Darkroom with running water, no drain

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