When my cousin, his wife and her daughter lived in my neighborhood; the girl "products" were constantly plugging between the baffle and inlet line to the first tank. The prior owner of this house had installed a very modern, sequential type system, with a series of 3 tanks IIRC. Anyhow; after about the third time of having to pull the cover off the tank, stick his head in and use either a broom handle or the "snake" to break open the clog/plug...................my cousin informed the girls, that if it happens again, they're gonna fix it themselves!!! Long story short, couple months later it plugged up again, and my cousin was informed about it. "NOT MY PROBLEM", he said to the girls. "What are we supposed to do?" they asked. "You figure it out..............I've showed you how I clear the clog...................you guys fix it...............you clogged it." Well after about 3 days of running to the gas station or the Walmart to use the bathroom and having fill a bucket to do PBR showers and no washing of clothes, the daughter got pizzed off and did a load of laundry and flooded the laundry room. She then left to go to work without cleaning it up also. My cousin gets home, smells something and sees what she did................so he waits for his wife to get home. Well, I wasn't there, but he said it hit the fan. Daughter gets a call at work and was informed to come home directly after work. She had the gall to actually say "NO" to her Mother after this. Well, cousin and wife cleaned the flood in the laundry room.............................and then just my cousin proceeded to put all of the daughters belongings out on the front porch and changed the lock. Daughter gets home at 0 dark 30 can't get in so sleeps on porch swing until morning. I come over the following morning (Saturday) to pick cousin up to go fishing. He comes out of the house when he sees me pull up, locks the door, walks right past the daughter without saying a word. We both watched as she tried the door to get in!!!!! Anyhow, 5-6 hours later, fishing done; we go back to his house for a beer or 3. Daughters stuff is not on porch and we walk inside. We can hear the washer and drier going....................and were informed that they were able to clear the clog themselves. Told my cousin.................I better go..............y'all have a lot to talk about here.
I have a 2 tank system. The main tank from the house that everything flows into, and a secondary tank that receives the "liquid" from the main tank. At the bottom of the secondary tank is a pump that pumps the liquid into the field once the liquid level trips float switch. The only problems I've had with mine are when the GFCI outlet that the pump plug into trips and both tanks then fill up................or when the mount that holds the tether for the switch rusts away and the switch won't trip to activate the pump..........................or like this year, where I got an ice plug in the line or distribution box leading from the secondary tank. First problem is an easy fix. Second problem I have to haul the pump out of the second tank and either get a new pump or switch, or Polish/American engineer and fix for the tether. The third problem I fed a garden hose from my utility sink in the house and fed it into the pipe up to the ice plug. I had a nozzle on the hose that would neck down into a sharp stream of water about the diameter of a pencil. I then turned on the hot water at the utility sink. Took about 10 minutes to melt the ice. I knew the ice was melted because I was no longer getting back flow into the secondary tank any longer. Problem 2 and 3 require getting my hands dirty.
Dang, that's a very low price for a new system. The people I bought the house from had not had the tank pumped in seven years they lived there, and that was with six people living in the house. The system failed during testing and they had to pay $20,000 for a new one. Lots of tanks, wires, control boxes etc. I have the thing pumped every year as to try and avoid a cashectomy like that.
We were quoted a minimum of $10K and that was a decade ago. Thankfully were able to limp it along. No doubt it would be $20K now.
Lots o' sand here, so I'm very hopeful we can get away with a simple system, if that's what we end up doing. I was just outside and started using the post hole digger to do a rough perc test, but down about a foot or so, is frozen. Other spots, I'm not able to get down an inch yet.
I had a bubble over problem when it rained. I kept dumping lime on it. Had it pumped out. Figured the field was very tired. So was I, and I wasn't feeling very rich with two kids in college. So I separated the gray water and ran it off in another direction for a few years. Later I hooked it back up and never any more boil over. I was told that if the field was left to rest, it would heal itself. So I lightened the load.
It is....................but with his wife and her daughter, I truly think it was a case of "out of site, out of mind". They use them things now as triage on the battlefield for bullet wounds because the expand and stop bleeding so well on bullet wounds.
Been taking most of the dirty clothes to the local laundromat. They have a huge washing machine there that'll do 2x what ours does.
After digging the hole on Friday, I finally went out today with about a gallon of water and filled it. Walked over to the firepit about 20-30' away and couldn't get my firepokerstick to even go in the ground 1/4". Totally frozen. Walked back over to the hole and the water level was down 2". Took 2 of the dogs for a walk out to the stacks and back. Maybe 5 minutes or so, and the water was all gone. Good sign? Too fast?
Definately a sign your sand's still there... nobody broke in and stole it... Sounds like you've got great drainage and that's got to help keep the cost down a little if you need to re-do the field...
lived in Australia for a while all grey water (read sinks, laundry but not toilets) went to gardens and lawn wondering when California will figure this out. if house not set up that way that's a lot of plumbing! all for being environmentally friendly but that's a lot of work AND make sure you use friendly soap hand cleaners etc.
Can you elaborate on that? Also, do septics need water? Someone mentioned the scum layer earlier? Will they function ok with toilets only?
Yeah, I figured that out as soon as I got down a couple inches. I'm quick like that. Whew, had me concerned for a couple seconds.
Toilets use water to flush, so there'll be water in the tank. This is my first septic system, so I'm a poopie newbie. Wait, that's not right.
