Septic Tank Maint.

[jwnge]

In my area, we have to pump and have the pumper sign off every 2 years.. In southern part of Wisconsin when we built a new home in 92, we had to put in a 6000 gallon holding tank and have it pumped when full. which was about every month and a half. Our land would not perk for mound or leech type /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gifseptic system. It cost about 75 bucks per pump...

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue"> My buddy is just breaking ground on a new house and wanted to put one of these in and the
1*county permit guy said they now prefer leach fields if the soil and area will support them.
2*His reasoning being that if the maintenance is not kept up they are worst for the surrounding area because the discharge can go to open ditches.
Dave </font>
1*2* So we screw it up right from the start cause we're afraid it might not be maintained.
A leach bed is prone to more problems than an aerator with a drain pipe.
Where does the county permit guy think the discharge from a malfunctioning leach bed is going to go?

The only raw sewage problems I've seen involved Leach beds.
I've never seen it happen to an aerator system with just a drain pipe.

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue">3*most of the systems also require a certain amount of airation, some systems depend soley on this and let it go from there but usually are some form of combination of the above.

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3*This is sorta backwards: Leach beds don't require Tanks but some Tanks may need a leach field.
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OUR FIRST CAR http://www.hubcapcafe.com/ocs/pages01/chev6003.htm
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[LBrown59]

<font color="blue"> 1*The household waste systems that have been installed around my area are aerator types.
2* The discharge usually goes into a French drain, or open ditch.
3*Mine discharges into 100ft. 4in. black plastic drain pipe with the end running towards the road ditch.
4*his was - is the only permit and inspection that is required by the county for new building outside any city or town limits.
5*When they perked my land this was my only option.
Wood_Butcher_Dav
Silver Member
**************** </font>
1*Mine is too. These are not designed for a leach bed. In fact a leach bed will defeat the purpose of them.
2*That is where mine discharges and that is where to discharge them ( not into a leach bed) because that is the way they are designed to function correctly.
3*My discharge line goes into the bottom of a road ditch 15 to 20 feet below the road surface. This is another reason not to bury the tank pump out opening. To have buried mine would have required that the hole for the tank would have to have been dug another 2' deeper.
Lowering The tank another 2 feet would have made the end of the discharge pipe 2 foot below the bottom of the ditch it drains in to. We all know a drain pipe for anything has to be above the bottom of the ditch it's draining into not below the bottom of said ditch.
4*As it should be, however a lot of places are screwing up on this by requiring leach beds with aerators thus reintroducing the problems shortcomings and headaches associated with leach fields. Adding a leach bed requirement brings back the very problems the aerators eliminated
5*The purpose of your percolation test was not to determine if a leach bed would be needed with your aerator it was to determine if you could get by with a septic tank instead.
There is no need for a perk test if you're going to install an aerator because there is nothing to perk.
I can't think of a better way to ruin my system than adding a leach bed to it.

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[rambler]

Very little is allowed here in Minnesota - perhaps the cold climate, never heard of an airation setup. A drainfield might be allowed, but mostly everything is a mound system. No seperate greywater setup allowed. No cesspool, no french drain type thing. Only done by licenced people, and pumped every 3 years I believe. I have heard of the holding tank, which needs to be pumped when full, but as that is raw sewage it needs to be hauled somewhere & treated, so is a very spendy thing to do.

This is the first thread on septics that was actually full of good advice, generally the question gets answered with use lots of yeast & ridex, etc...... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif


--->Paul

 

[Highbeam]

Our state requires primary and secondary treatment for homes. Primary is typically anaerobic decomposition of scum and sludge in the septic tank. Pretty much like all areas described in this thread.

Secondary is aerobic and is done by aerating the septic tank effluent using one of several methods like aerators, sand filters, recirculating gravel filters, mounds, or drainfields. The secondary aeration is most cheaply done in my area through a drainfield (leechbed). The effluent dribles through the non-saturated ground and the air loving bugs eat it up. If your ground is saturated with liquid either from groundwater or backed up effluent then there is no oxygen to provide the secondary treatment and your system will not be providing secondary treatment. Almost all the problems come from the secondary treatment stage filaing since keeping it non-saturated depends on many variables like loading volume, loading strength, drainfield infiltration rate, drainfield aeration, etc that an uninformed homeowner can screw up.

Adding bacteria is not necessary. Doing so would demonstrate that you do not understand the prevelance of bacteria on everything you touch. Ubiquitous is the word.

The final step is disposal. After secondary treatment, it can be dumped on the ground in a ditch or whatever and shouldn't smell or be dangerous. There is the yuck factor and most people, and agencies, do not want to see finished discharge so some sort of underground disposal is almost always required.

The above described process is almost exactly how a large scale sewage treatment plant works too. Using aeration basins and sludge digesters. They often dump into a river.

It may be poop to you but it is my bread and butter. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[PILOON]

Re Pumping:

Last time I had a pumpout done the operator did indeed pump the tank dry.
Disturbing to me was that he then filled the tank with what he claimed was 'my liquids'.
In other words he claims he carts away only the solids and slurry.
Now pumping would have the same effect as running everything thru a blender so when he returns the liquids I would now have a thick water that would then flow into the drainage fields and prematurely cloq my pipes.
Or am I wrong.

Anybody have comments or opinions on this proceedure?

Thanks.

 

[Highbeam]

He should not have done that. You got screwed. He probably had one more pumpout to do that afternoon and was running out of tank space on his truck. You should refill with water to prevent the tank from floating out of the ground in high groundwater locations.

Best thing you could have done was to wait a day or two for the slurry to separate and then use the tank as normal. You were right, if you went inside and did a load of laundry, slurry would have gone out to the drainfield.

That is a horrible thing to do. He should be ashamed.

 

[Av8r3400]

That strikes me as odd. There is a specific form that is filled out by the liscensed pumper and it is sent to the DNR. I have never had to send anything to the town or county, only the state government. The letter we got when we moved into our last house was from the DNR, not the town or county.

 

[5030]

Highbeam:

Now I know how you broke your loader......you were lifting a concrete lid off a large septic tank. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I had one break the connections when I lived in Ohio from a dry pump. Concrete tanks make real nice dry land ships.