OK to drain humidifier into basement floor drain

Question

What I have in my basement could loosely be called a drain. It doesn't have a pipe. Best I can tell, they just cut a 3 inch hole in the floor; all you see is the rocks under the floor.

I've been draining the dehumidifier into this but I wonder if it's really that great of an idea. Before I did that, I would get a good 2 gallons every day. That seems like a lot of water to be putting down that hole. Am I making the dehumidifier work harder by keeping the water around? Is that water just re-evaporating back into the basement?

Answer 1

The humidifier should be draining either to the outside - like rainwater, away from your house - or to a real sewer drain. I have a floor drain which actually connects into the main sewer pipe. It sounds like your drain does not, so I would not recommend draining into that hole.

Many people have a similar problem with the condensate drain from their central air conditioner. Those who don't have a drain below the condensate output have to put in a condensate pump to get the condensate to a drain or outside - and failure of those pumps can result in a flood.