It could run into the street after running through the parking lot. If it ran into the street it would go down a hill and soak in along the side of the rd. I imagine diverting it to a grassy area on the same property to soak in is ok. Compared to it soaking in on the side of the rd? Either way it would never reach waters of the US. I can see where it running out of the property down a hill and across someone elses driveway would be annoying but what if it just pods a bit in the street and soaks in on the side? I can see this happening doing residental driveways. Do I really need to capture at the end of the driveway and pump back up in the yard? Is this bad for the yard?
What do you do with water that you cant let go into a roadside drain on a commercial job and you do not have a grassy place to pump out on the property. Even at 6GPM it adds up fast and even a large vaccum fills up quick.
I am trying to keep my head up. Obviously I am still new but I do not want to be a hack or here today gone tomorrow because I did not learn how to do it right. I look forward to some easy to understand advice on what to do in various situations.
Hey Patrick.. Some of this stuff is blown out of wack and some of it is real. I can only tell you from my experiences in the 17 yrs now that I have been in this business. Besides checking out what the rules are in your own area and what fellow contractors may be getting fined for once again in your area I'll give you an idea what I deal with.
First off I learned from a few in this industry on what to do and what not to do. I'll leave those names out of it so this doesn't become a political type thread. I'll just give you the facts that I deal with here. I'm not saying what I do here is the law of the land or even the exact laws in my area.... its just what I do. On Residential we never have any issues with Environmental concerns except to say the products that we use today arent as good as they were years ago because of this green factor here and what I'm refering to is the VOC's when it comes to stains for wood restoration. The quality of the Stains has dropped here. They try to tell you here that the water based stains are better then the oil based stains and today that is sadly becoming the truth because they over regulated the oil base stains so we had some product issues but we never have had any Environmental issues ourselves. This is on the residential end. So I don't worry about EPA concerns when it comes to residential work. We do a neat and adaquate job without leaving a mess behind. So I'm good there.
The Commercial end is getting to be a bit more difficult. There are companies here that have recieved some pretty large fines because of water run off. One of them was in my favorite seaside town here 10 minutes from my house. This company was cleaning a Warehouse and the water runoff spilled out and ran into the water. There fine was in the tens of thousands... Probably caused there company to shut down.
On some of the Commercial jobs we do especially in the parking garage sector we are told that when we put in our bid or estimate that there should be no water runoff from the property that is to be cleaned. Also on a couple of Bids they requested a full reclaiming set-up. One of the fully reclaiming setup qualifications that this college asked for it was in there right to make that mandatory because its there property and this is what there requesting. I put in a bid for this job and if I get it this School is well known for something and I'll post where we were after we finish the job.... thats if we get it. Its been 6 months since we put that Bid in and Kathy(My wife) stays on top of this school to see how where doing.
I don't like that they want full reclaiming to be done so I priced it high.... so will see where it goes.
A couple of the other parking garages we do they also say no runoff from property. So we comply to there standards. We also comply to what they ask for which is to keep the garbage out of the drains so we Berm them and pump/vac the water that collects and release it thru my own setup ways of doing things.
So pretty much when I bid on a job I follow there guidelines on what they request to be done. I also pretty much Know what the laws are here when it comes to storm drains and its a common sense answer. No one wants to hear that your going to let dirty water pour down them. They don't want to hear that your not using any chemicals so your going to let the water pour down those drains...
Some of the other commercial work we do such as Strip Malls etc the requirements are less. Doesn't mean that its right... So the straight answer from me is find out what the laws are and use common sense. Commercial work if they are asking for something to be done a certain way because of Enviro concerns, Just be ready to do what they ask for if you win the bid.
Don't get overly worked up over this because you'll get yourself nuts doubting yourself. Just be smart and have at the very least ways to be compliant to what your customer is requesting and what the laws are when dealing with commercial work.
Besides that, Stay connected on the net thru places like these bulletin boards, Organizations and just networking with others in this industry to learn from them and to also let them learn from your experiences.
Good luck.