Septic tank, what is normal?

[patrickg]

Hey, Ozarker, Any folks up your way using the "infiltrator" leach field product? I'm leaning that way for the upcoming septic project.

Patrick

 

[Ozarker]

Not that I am aware of. I know very little about septic systems except the one I have. And I am just learning about it. When I bought this place, the old owner told me what it was and that it didn't require any maintenance or pumping. I recently discovered that he was full of crap.

 

[gmason]

Ozarker, wow, we saw a few of these systems in our class. I haven't heard of many in our area though. The aerater system is used to introduce aerobic decomposition to the tank, whereas without the aerobic you have anerobic(without O) in the tank, but you still have decomposition. When the effluent is pumped to the drain field then the soil allows for aerobic decomposition.

The peat systems are interesting too. We saw several different fiberglass ones at class. One was filled with a hair like peat from a special place in Ireland or nearby there, and you needed to do little maint except to "fluff" it once in a while. They do rot after a certain amount of water is passed through. They do an excelent job of filtering and removing N from the water.
Pretty expensive though they said.
gary

 

[Ozarker]

I couldn't tell you what it cost originally. It was already installed when I bought the house. The cost of running it is the electricity for the pump. pumping out and occasionally replacing the pump. I have one on order now for $500 but the old one lasted 15 years. So if that holds true, a new pump about every 15 years.

I guess I can reduce the time the pump runs now since my kids are gone and it is just the two of us. I just have to figure out how to do that in the control box. I don't have the original paperwork on the unit so I'll just play with it using a chart I found on the internet.

 

[rstcso]

I just had a septic system installed last week. The installer used a product I didn't know about, and had I known, I might have done the job myself. Here's the link...
http://www.hancor.com/product/ec.html

All the installer had to do was install the tank, dig four lateral lines and place these panels. The output of the tank goes into the top of the center panel of the first row. Each end of the first row has an outlet near the top that loops into the bottom of the next row. When/if this row fills up, the output goes to row three, then onto row four.

The amazing thing about this stuff is... you don't have to use any gravel, pipe or anything other than these panels. The panels are placed directly in the trench, and each lateral line is allowed to be +/- one inch from one end to the other. The panels are about 36" wide and the installer used a 36" bucket on his backhoe, so didn't take long at all to do the job. After the county did their inspection, he used a skid steer to back fill... right over the top of the panels! He told me the crush strength of these panels is 16,000 lbs, so using the tractor over the field will not ever be a problem.

He did such a good job and was very fair in his pricing, I had him go ahead and dig the trenches for my water lines and power. He had to go through a bunch of rock and still only charged $.50/ft for 220 feet. Worked out to the same price it would have cost me to rent a walk-behind trencher for me to do it myself. The trench he dug was 18" wide and 24" deep. Couldn't have done that with a walk-behind.

Anyone interested in pictures, I took many. Just let me know. Each are about 150k.

 

[gmason]

We saw this product at our class too. It uses the large void under the product as the storage area instead of gravel. The one thing I remember about these system that you had to watch out for are tree roots getting into them and causing havic.
But like you said, VERY easy to install.
Good luck.

gary