It's been about 4 years in the new house, but only really 2-3 of being here regularly. So its a little early to have the septic pumped, but I was curious about how it was doing. Plus, we use a garbage disposer (sparingly) and occasionally flush some of those "supposed to be biodegradable and flushable, but are they really?" things.
VERY glad we did. First thing the pumper says when he gets off the cover is, "looks like your inlet pipe is running uphill a little". Sure enough, you could see a little standing water in the pipe just at the end. I am CERTAIN that when we installed the tank and pipe, it had proper slope all the way to the tank. IIRC, it was even a little excessive, definitely over an inch/10ft. So either the tank floated before we got it full of water, or the inlet pipe got sunk when backfilling. The trench was hand-dug by me and had undisturbed hard pan under the entire run of pipe except for the last few feet where it spanned the big hole excavated (blasted) in the rock for the tank. So not too likely that the whole run of pipe had sunk.
I wasn't here when my contractor backfilled around the tank, but trusted/assumed that appropriate care would be taken to fill carefully and well around the piping. You guessed it - NOT!!!
I partially filled the newly dug trench for the line with water to accentuate just how sunk it is. The "sump" corresponds exactly to the gap where the big tank excavation is. I haven't lasered it yet to be sure, but based on the water, it is a more than 4" sump. Turns out, the pipe is also cracked/broken, because after I watered the trench I could hear the water trickling into it.
Never would have known without having the tank pumped until the "sump" in the pipe backed up. We're probably very lucky that it hadn't already backed up, like right when we had a houseful of guests.
VERY glad we did. First thing the pumper says when he gets off the cover is, "looks like your inlet pipe is running uphill a little". Sure enough, you could see a little standing water in the pipe just at the end. I am CERTAIN that when we installed the tank and pipe, it had proper slope all the way to the tank. IIRC, it was even a little excessive, definitely over an inch/10ft. So either the tank floated before we got it full of water, or the inlet pipe got sunk when backfilling. The trench was hand-dug by me and had undisturbed hard pan under the entire run of pipe except for the last few feet where it spanned the big hole excavated (blasted) in the rock for the tank. So not too likely that the whole run of pipe had sunk.
I wasn't here when my contractor backfilled around the tank, but trusted/assumed that appropriate care would be taken to fill carefully and well around the piping. You guessed it - NOT!!!
I partially filled the newly dug trench for the line with water to accentuate just how sunk it is. The "sump" corresponds exactly to the gap where the big tank excavation is. I haven't lasered it yet to be sure, but based on the water, it is a more than 4" sump. Turns out, the pipe is also cracked/broken, because after I watered the trench I could hear the water trickling into it.
Never would have known without having the tank pumped until the "sump" in the pipe backed up. We're probably very lucky that it hadn't already backed up, like right when we had a houseful of guests.
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