Mowing Mowing Septic tank

[MrP]

Steve,

I have been mowing over mine for 3 years now with my L3410 and 700 lb mowing deck. I have not had any problems.

I am more concerned with the leach field then the septic tank. Anyone know what the leach fields are generally made of? Are they concrete or just crushed rock?

 

[DavidInNH]

Repairs to the building you say, check this out...

 

[DavidInNH]

...and a bugger to get the fork lift out...

-david

 

[Thomas]

Thats what I call having a real bad day!!

 

[DavidInNH]

I think they were still in the demo phase of the project, but I don't think they planned on the septic tank. The crazy thing is that he runs a highway construction company and has an excellent safety record.

-david

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Your leach field (if it is current) should consists of washed gravel , and plastic pipe. No normal tractor that anybody would be finish mowing with will hurt it.
As for the septic tank, if it is a concrete tank of recent vintage, you again will be safe. Be very careful of old steel tanks. They have not been used in many areas in 20+ years, and often have rusted .

 

[Mike_Dumond]

Alot depends on the tank, a concrete tank will hold alot more than you might think. A steel tank, well, I had a neighbor who went through his while walking across the lawn. Steel does rust rather quickly underground. Some much older homes still have cedar tanks. My fathers caved in all by itself, and a neighbor lost his craftsman in his. No one wanted to dirve it after that, go figure./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif There are also plastic tanks out there, which I wouldn't trust with anything larger than a hand mower.

You could always find someone you aren't overly fond of, and let them try out your tractor over the tank. (Kidding, just kidding) (even though I could think of a few)/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[patrickg]

In addition to gravel in leach fields you might find chomped up tires as a gravel substitute. Said to work marginally better and saves on labor during construction due to light weight. There are leach fields that have hollow voids where traditionally there has been gravel (and now sometimes chomped up tires). The "Infiltrator" is one such system. It is reputed to work better than gravel or tires and hence "code" in this state allows fewer linear feet of Infiltrator than an equivalent gravel or tire installation. I would be very nervous driving much of anything over an Infiltrator leach field.
The septic installer I hired for my mom's tank and leach field was a cautious expert. When I asked about driving over the leach field with my tractor he said to minimize it due to compaction considerations. when I asked it I could drive over it with the tractor to till the surface, he said OK but only till the top couple inches. I don't recall getting any amplification on that.

Hope this helps...

Patrick

 

[MrP]

Will,

Do you know how deep leach fields usually are?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

MrP. They are usually rather shallow, only as deep as you need to get grade away from your septic tank. Except in unique situations, somewhere between 1-3 feet beneath the surface would be the norm.