Septic question - pumping to drain field

[workinallthetime]

I really hope someone can help me. I have no money, well very little. I am a disabled vet and have very little income and I have a drain field backing up. Is there anything I can do that is not 8 to 10 grand. The drain field is around 30 years old, I was told by the local "pros" in north Carolina that I had to replace tank and field. The estimates are from 6 to 10 thousand depending. The water is seeping up just in front of the septic tank itself. Please tell me there is some miracle chemical I can use.
Thanks

I ran into this issue and so did my neighbor about 3 years after mine, the situations were different but the problems were the same. We both had blackwater (sewage) seeping to the surface or in my case running out to the surface. My solution was to lay an entire new leach field, that project brought me to this website so many years ago, started with a bx23 and now a b3030. The 500 feet of line i installed cost me around 700 bucks plus my labor. 1 1/2 inch marble rock about 40 tons, and 500 feet of pipe, never had another problem.
my neigbors tank colapsed, we ran 250 feet of new line and he had a tank installed. In short sounds like your tank is full and leach field has failed. septic work is expensive for no reason other than they are working in your corn.

 

[dmccarty]

It bears repeating, has the tank been pumped? And when?

My tank has two tanks with two lids. When the tank was pumped did they pump both sides of the tank? If there is a filter was it cleaned?

In my county the tank has two tanks/lids. Only one is required to be on a riser. This riser is on the side with the filter and liquid. A dishonest septic pumper can pump the liquid side but NOT the solids side of the tank. The pipe from the house goes into the solids side. So it could fill up and back up.

My tank has two risers on it for easy pumping. :thumbsup:

What part of NC are you located? My area of NC has very bad soil for perking. Many lots require a low pressure pipe, LPP or a spray field. This can be very expensive. $20K to 30K expensive. A conventional system is might be in the $3K to $6K range.

I have not read the NC rules lately but in the past you could install your own system. I had a lot that required an LPP system. One bid was for $16k. I already had a design from a engineer and I will be danged if I could figure out why the field would cost $16k. I figured I could build the field and fail an inspection several times before I got close to spending $16K.

We never did build on that lot so I did not build the septic system but I was seriously considering doing so.

Later,
Dan