LBrown59
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Go through the tank and it won't matter how strong the cover.
Septic Tank Driveway
- Thread starter Pirate
- Start date
- Views: 47295
tommu56
Elite Member
Think the cover you are talking about is the access to pump it.
I was thinking about the whole thing say 6' by 8" small patio sized concrete top of the tank that would only load the sides of tank not the unsupported middle of the top.
tom
Dang it, not me, the other guy. I'm talking about the entire tank too. Some people get confused when you talk about tank cover and what I would call manhole cover on the tank for pumping (except I wouldn't want to be the man in the hole, yech!). I'm going to get an engineer to come out (if he will, they already balked when I said "septic") and then do some cost analysis of slab vs. moving tank. I'm sure slab will be much cheaper and easier.
JB4310
Super Member
I've been a contractor for 26 years, I'll tell you nothing makes me more uncomfortable than when someone gets an engineer involved in a relatively simple problem.
No offence to any engineers here, but I just think they should be left alone to tackle the real tough jobs.
Call the tank manufacturer, since it's only 16 years old they have to have the specs on it, ask the guys that install them and work on them.
My mother called me up one day to say there was a cave in in her front yard, it was an old dry well or gray water tank, was pretty deep, maybe 4 feet down, but as far as I could tell the entire thing was built out of wood, for sure the entire top was thick wood planks, about 3ft x 5ft. The point of this story is, it was 90 years old! and I use to park my full size pick ups right on top of it, we never knew it was there.
Good luck with whatever route you take,
EDIT: well I just found this, doesn't bolster my opinion that it's not a big deal, but it may be helpful to you. hope it doesn't make you more nervous
http://www.inspect-ny.com/septic/Dont_Drive_On_Septics.htm
JB.
No offence to any engineers here, but I just think they should be left alone to tackle the real tough jobs.
Call the tank manufacturer, since it's only 16 years old they have to have the specs on it, ask the guys that install them and work on them.
My mother called me up one day to say there was a cave in in her front yard, it was an old dry well or gray water tank, was pretty deep, maybe 4 feet down, but as far as I could tell the entire thing was built out of wood, for sure the entire top was thick wood planks, about 3ft x 5ft. The point of this story is, it was 90 years old! and I use to park my full size pick ups right on top of it, we never knew it was there.
Good luck with whatever route you take,
EDIT: well I just found this, doesn't bolster my opinion that it's not a big deal, but it may be helpful to you. hope it doesn't make you more nervous
http://www.inspect-ny.com/septic/Dont_Drive_On_Septics.htm
JB.
Hey JB, I read that link the other day. Nice stuff. I think they should have dumped that load before trying to push it out of that tank though.
I don't mind the engineer bit. I look at it as a bit of insurance. He says slab should be x amount thick to allow for car under 5k to park here. Car falls through, I go after engineer.
I don't mind the engineer bit. I look at it as a bit of insurance. He says slab should be x amount thick to allow for car under 5k to park here. Car falls through, I go after engineer.
CurlyDave
Elite Member
Well, I am an engineer, chemical, not mechanical, although I minored in mechanical, and do all of my own calculations. If something needs to be stamped by a professional engineer I pay a registered engineer to sign off and stamp my plans.
A lot of "relatively simple" things are very easy to underdesign, and underbuild.
Over the course of about 2 years I watched my neighbor's retaining wall collapse three times. Fortunately, no one got hurt, and when it went it didn't undermine his house, just his driveway. It was made of stacked 2'x2'x4' concrete pieces. He is a good friend, and the first time it fell down, I explained how to re-stack the blocks so they wouldn't collapse, but it was not intuitive and he just didn't believe me. So he had them re-stacked and the blocks fell over a second time. The third time he got the same contractor out as the first two times and told him he had to set each course of blocks back, the way I wanted to, but he didn't set them back far enough and the fool thing fell over again.
For the fourth stacking, he took my advice and told the contractor how far to set each course back. Of course the contractor didn't believe him and didn't set the blocks back as far as I wanted, but he did set them back enough to work--just very little safety factor.
Then his son started to build a water feature at one end of the wall -- a pond at the base and a waterfall flowing into it. The first winter all the rocks fell into the pool. Somehow the neighbor got smarter, and asked me to design the water feature before his son re-built it. Well, nothing has fallen into the pond again.
Bottom line here is that a little bit of engineering can save you a lot of grief...
A lot of "relatively simple" things are very easy to underdesign, and underbuild.
Over the course of about 2 years I watched my neighbor's retaining wall collapse three times. Fortunately, no one got hurt, and when it went it didn't undermine his house, just his driveway. It was made of stacked 2'x2'x4' concrete pieces. He is a good friend, and the first time it fell down, I explained how to re-stack the blocks so they wouldn't collapse, but it was not intuitive and he just didn't believe me. So he had them re-stacked and the blocks fell over a second time. The third time he got the same contractor out as the first two times and told him he had to set each course of blocks back, the way I wanted to, but he didn't set them back far enough and the fool thing fell over again.
For the fourth stacking, he took my advice and told the contractor how far to set each course back. Of course the contractor didn't believe him and didn't set the blocks back as far as I wanted, but he did set them back enough to work--just very little safety factor.
Then his son started to build a water feature at one end of the wall -- a pond at the base and a waterfall flowing into it. The first winter all the rocks fell into the pool. Somehow the neighbor got smarter, and asked me to design the water feature before his son re-built it. Well, nothing has fallen into the pond again.
Bottom line here is that a little bit of engineering can save you a lot of grief...
scott_vt
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JB4310
Super Member
Just to clarify, I don't want to sound like a braggart, when I say I've been a contractor for so many years and engineers make me uncomfortable, I don't mean because I know it all and don't need them.
It's more that I'm am intimidated by them cause I don't understand their language. I'm a patch up/fix up guy, that's what an old timer called me, not very flattering but fairly accurate. We do some specialty restoration work for institutional type customers but are often working with just a trowel and a pail of cement or roof cement. I've never worked on new construction in my life.
When a customer gets an engineer involved with trying to figure out why the exterior of the building needs maintenance after the New England winters. It turns into a circus, turning a relatively simple problem into a Government project.
If your gonna go all out, make it capable of holding up to any possible load that will fit down that driveway, like a fire truck, oil truck, tree truck or loaded dump truck like in the pictures.
For just the 5K car, that's only 1250 lbs at any time on top center, above the ground over the buried tank, a pc of plywood wood would be sufficient, even if the tank was made by gophers digging out a burrow 2-1/2 ft down
JB.
Good Mornin Mike,
I thought it would be funny to direct the air flow from a back pack blower down the roof vent stack on my shop while a buddy was in the bathroom, he wasn't on the throne but came out looking like he just got out of the shower, whole room was wet, ceiling and walls were dripping. I didn't realize it would have such a powerful effect, this building is on a septic system so I guess by blowing down the only vent, there was no where else for the pressure to release. DUH,
I didn't premeditate this foolish act, it just came to me while I was up on the roof blowing debris off and saw him going inside.
.
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scott_vt
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Good Mornin John,
I gotta laugh when I hear these stories, but of course I have never been on the receiving end.....
when something like that happens ! BTW, heavy rain today John... good for business !
J_J
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My tank had steel plate on it and I noticed that it was bent from something rolling over it. I measures the top of the tank, and built my own cover. On a flat surface, I screwed 2 x 6 together for half the tank size because the center of the tank had a rib built at the top which supported the two halves. I then put wire and re-bar in the form with the wire and re-bar at 2 in from bottom, about center. I also welded a chain to the re-bar so I could lift it whenever. I then pored cement in the form and leveled it at 4 in.
