Steve Austin writes:

It isn't neccessary to treat your waste water at all, unless you're

dumping it into the sewer, or onto the ground. Both require

expensive testing and permits.

A guy over in NYC was put into handcuffs, hauled off to jail, fined

thousands of dollars, and ended up investing around $30,000 or

so in water treatment equipment because he had been dumping his

rinse water into the municipal sewer system.

The NYSDEC hazardous waste reduction unit advised me this

way. Rinse water itself, is not considered hazardous waste, but, in

order to just dump it on the ground, you need a permit from the

clean water dudes. They come down and test your rinse water and

tell you how much clean water you have to add to it to dump it safely.

They also advised me that the cost of this permit would put me out

of business and suggested I use a self contained water system.

I believe the systems Besway and Benco carry are good, but, I

built my own stripping pan, and I purposely built it as low to the

floor as possible, which doesn't allow these clarifiers to fit under it,

so, I built my own system.

As you can see in the photo, my whole water system is a self

contained loop that fits in a small area, made up of plastic stripping

drums now. I used to use metal drums, but they start rusting out

after a few years, so, I've switched to plastic. Instead of building a

platform, I found it's easier to use one or two drums, filled with

water for stability, and some kind of wooden top.

The blue drum up on top feeds my water sprayer. I cut the bung

out of a drum and took it right to the hardware store to get the

reducers I needed. Plastic piping would probably be better, the

threads would be the same as the plastic drums. Using metal takes

care because it'll rip out the threads in a plastic drum if you're not careful.

As I'm rinsing off furniture, the water drains into a small plastic

bucket, which I then dump into the black drum over on the left. I

made that small because a lot of the chunks of paint and dirt will

settle right in there, and I don't want to have to dig it out of a deep

drum when I clean it.

The black drum drains into a deeper drum. The reason for that is

that it allows the really fine particles to settle to the bottom of this

drum. The third drum is the fairly clean water that will go back into

the drum that feeds my sprayer. I just dip a bucket into this drum

and pour the water in the feeder drum, usually two or three

buckets at a time.

By fairly clean water, I mean that there are no chunks that are

going to plug up my sprayer, which is the whole purpose of doing

this. The water will always look like mop bucket water, dirty

brown.  This is not a bad thing, but, a good thing. The water will

contain the surfactants from the stripper and rinses much better

than totally clean water does.

Back to the second drum. After cutting the two thirds of this

drum, I took the remaining top third and drilled a bunch of holes in

it,  removed the bungs,  flipped it upside down, and set it on top

of the second drum to act as a catch basin.

There are very logical reasons for everything I've done here. I then

place a small bucket in this catch basin to catch any big chunks

that come out of the black drum. You can either drill holes in the

bottom and sides of a plastic two gallon bucket, or you can buy a

sieve bucket like I've done here. The only purpose for this bucket

is to hold the cloth paint strainer bag in place which catches an

amazing amount of the finer particles. To catch the larger chunks, I

set a speghetti strainer on top of that.

You can use as many cut down drums to drain into each other as

you want to.  Those drains you see are plastic drum spout kits that

you can buy at Ace Hardware. You just drill a hole, or cut it with

a saw. Use the plastic gasket in the kit to draw the hole size, stick

your plastic drain through, add your gasket, and screw on your

flange. You could do the same with metal pipe.

As you spray water in the rinsing stage, a great deal of it is going

to evaporate, and because there is stripper in it, and water vapor

hangs in the air, you're going to find that it's a very nasty situation,

maybe worse than the stripping fumes. It will help to have a

second fan about head high, besides your regular exhaust fan.

That's why this system works, the dirty water evaporates,

disposing of itself into the air.

When the water in the system becomes so low that your sprayer is

running out, it's time to clean.  Empty as much water as you can

out of your straining drums into five gallon buckets without stirring

up any more sludge than you have to. Let the particles settle for a

day, pour it off slowly, and put that water back into your feeder drum.

Dig the mud and paint chips out of your strainer drums, put into

fives, and you'll find most of it settles, and the water will come to

the top, where you can pour it off. Spread this mud out on a piece

of ply outside and let the sun dry it out. Right in front of your

exhaust fan is good. You should be able to dispose of this dried

out stuff in the regular garbage, as long as your county isn't too strict.
 

Steve Austin-NY