I’m building a garage and want to install a floor drain. The township inspector says it’s permissible (required, in fact) to slope the floor toward the door. I’d like to be neater than that and install a trench drain just inside the garage door but if I do that, the inspector says that such a drain would be considered a “fixture” under the code and therefore must go to the sanitary sewer. This was quite a surprise considering all the dye testing being done to remove inappropriate flow from the sanitary system.

 I understand code also says this drain can’t go to “the storm water system”. However, there is no municipal storm water system here so I am also being required to install a 10’x10’x4’ rock well for rainwater retention. It would make sense to run the garage drain to that, after all it is not a municipal “storm water system” but no deal. Inspector says must go to sanitary. My second choice would be to just have the floor drain pipe run-to-daylight. It seems to me this is functionally identical to letting the water run across a sloped floor toward the door. All I’m doing is collecting that water up in order to direct it to a specific location.

Can someone familiar with the code help me to understand why I can’t run this drain to daylight? …or, better still, help me explain to the inspector where he is misapplying or misreading the code?