Meant to ask.......is that tank made with fiberglass reinforced concrete? Looks all fiber-ee round the opening.
I hate to tell ya brother, but green grass over the drain field ain't a good sign. It means the drain field is not working properly, it is overloaded, saturated, and the effluent is moving to the surface, rather than percolating downward.....https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/henv/henv-3-w.pdf
I think I'm gonna' call it a temporary win. It's staying out in the field instead of coming out the lids and backing up in the drains. The field isn't all soggy and brownish..........yet. This just needs to work well enough until next year. I'll get it done up good and proper then.
I cant open the link anse? But not liking what ya put up as mine has had green lines on it for at least 13 years? Everything seems fine though.
I think it depends in large part on how deep your lines are buried. Perhaps papadave wasn't getting any flow through his lines before, and now he is? Just throwing out ideas. I think the "green over the leach lines is a bad thing" is only a problem if that suddenly starts happening on an older, unmaintained system, rather than a system where it's always been like that. I don't know.
Have had 4 leach fields over the years... 3 always had grass grow well over the fields. Tanks were pumped at least every 5 years. No issues. The farm's new field was 3 baffle lines in sand/gravel/stone bed... the grass never did well with that one field.
On site sewage treatment systems vary. For the most part though, when the grass is green on top of the drain field lines it is a sign the trenches are full of septage and it is being drawn up by grass roots. This means the surrounding base soil is saturated (or for other reasons, like type of soil, etc.) and septage is not capable of percolating downward. This is where the term 'perc test' comes from, it is a measure of how fast water seeps out of a test hole. When ground ain't perc'n, it shows by green grass above the drain field line trenches. A system can operate this way for years, but it can be a sign the system is stressed, or operating at/beyond capacity. I'd recommend measures to divert surface water away from the drain field, and also, any measure that would reduce water going in to it, in an attempt to aid in the fields function. ...this is from the attached pdf file from perdue university... "Green Grass Over the Trenches When a septic system soil absorption field overloads hydraulically, the trenches are filled with wastewater. Hydraulic overloading occurs when the soil surrounding the trenches cannot absorb and disperse high wastewater flows produced by the home. When the soil cannot absorb and disperse all the wastewater, the trench fills like a bathtub. The nutrient-rich wastewater moves through the soil pores above the trenches to the surface, resulting in lush green grass over the absorption field. In dry months, the green stripes over the trenches offer a stark contrast to the grass between the trenches (Figure 2)."
Makes sence for sure and thanks eh. Only the 2 of us now at the house and I am gonna look into the diversion of any unwanted water.
Thanks for that info. @ ansehnlich1 . I get the whole thing, and the field is obviously still not "right", but things are working better than they have been for a while. We use very little water around here...maybe a load of laundry every 12-24 hours, we've been using paper plates to cut down on some of the cleanup water use. Other measures are also contributing to low use. Low flow toilet, and shower head, and an HE washer that supposedly only uses less than 10 gallons/normal load. As few showers as possible, which isn't a big deal, since neither of us actually "works" anymore. I use the great outdoors as my urinal when the dogs and I take walks (we live on 8.5 acres of woods).....several times a day. Local laundromat owner (we've been using that for at least a couple loads/week) had a new field put in and he said the lines will only be down about a foot. Our lines are almost 3' down. Pretty sure we have "septage" in our field too, and that's why we had the lines jetted.....not sure it did much but it was cheap. I think the thing that may have saved us somewhat was all the stuff blocking the outflow line, which acted as a filter of sorts. I'm speculating, of course, and trying to make myself feel good about the whole thing, as there's nothing else we can do until next year.
Years ago Terry, when I was a senior in HS, I worked all summer with a local master elec & plumber. One of the jobs I did at our farm was help him run a separate 3" line from the kitchen area of the el, down a trench about 150' to 2-55 gal drums with holes I made all thru them, buried in a hole (tops were about 2' down) and back filled with crushed stone. The kitchen sink, dishwasher and the washing machine were plumbed to this one line, nothing else. That lasted for about 35 years. It finally plugged up and we had to dig the pipe up down by the 2 drums. We found about the last 4 feet of that 3" pipe was solid full of white soap caked to the wall with about a pencil size hole in the middle... just enough to trickle. We ripped out the old drums, replaced and replaced that last section of 3" pipe and she's still in business now. Bottom line... that was proof positive that diverting that water away from the septic system was worth it.
Yeah Stinny, we call them 'drywells' around here. They almost always eventually plug up with the nasty smellin grey hairy gooey stuff. I'm surprised that setup lasted as long as it did. PapaDave, your doing all the right things, hopefully your system can recover some and function well for years to come. I had a place that had a high water table, I mean, when folks were digging wells deeper during a drought years ago, I popped the lid off my well casing and could see water just 10 feet down, and THAT was during a prolonged drought......any time we had an inch of rain, or in the spring time, that septic system would be slow to drain, couldn't use the toilets until the water receded, then all would be fine. Summer time and fall it was no problem, just winter and spring.
The one right at the back tire always looks nice and lush ansel? The rest not so much. The tank is up to the right of the ceder rails and house is left of those.
We have that put in for us, two of use on it only, and only gray water. Black water goes to the sewer. The kids will be upstairs and all their water goes to the sewer. We used to be six here and did have issues until I did the gray water separation. Will be anxious to see how it performs. Top of the barrel is only a foot down. I think I'll have a couple bales of hay put on it this winter.
