Those who have septic tanks

[warmsecondrinse]

I grew up in a late 60's development where every house had its own septic system. Ours didn't need pumping out until some time after the 20 year mark. All waste water from the house went into the septic system. We always used bleach when needed. In fact I'd never heard of bleach causing a problem until I read this thread, lol.

The prevailing professional wisdom was that once you open a septic tank, it's never the same again and will need to be pumped out at some point later.

Rid-X was always used every couple of months.

How it was determined I've no idea but when a leaching field was deemed to be on its way to saturation a separate line for the washer was installed with its own leaching field.

 

[ea56]

The main reason that my family home’s septic tank needed to be pumped out in 1966 was because for the year before that our home was shared with my stepfathers family.  We had 11 people living there for a year, all using the toilets, bathing and laundry was being done daily to the tune of at least 4 loads a day.  

 

The home was a 3 bedroom 2 bath home built in 1961 and septic tank was sized appropriately for that many bedrooms and baths.  The original builder planned on the home being occupied by 2 to 5 persons, not 11!

 

I don’t believe that the use of bleach in the white loads of laundry contributed to the necessity of the septic pumping at the 5 year mark.  It was the massive amounts of excrement and toilet paper deposited in the septic tank by 11 people over one TERRIBLE year!

 

BTW, I was the unfortunate individual that found out the tank needed to pumped out.  I had stayed home from school and was cleaning the house and doing the laundry for my Mom.  I went back to the back bathroom to clean it and found 4” of gray water in the tub.  I thought, who the hell was that dirty?  Then I went into the kitchen where the washer was located and found that the laundry tub next to the washer had filled up with the same putrid water.

 

I immediately called Mom at work and within 90 mins there was a truck there to pump out the septic tank.  The next time she needed to have it pumped out was 20 years later.

 

Eddie 

 

[DADoES]

 
My septic is an aerobic treatment system.  Three chambers to the treatment tank:  pretreatment, aeration (air pump), and clarification (chlorine tablets).  It discharges into a separate pump tank (2nd pic) which has a sump pump that sprays the treated water onto the "back 40" of the yard via a couple standard sprinkler heads.  The pump runs on a timer set for the wee-morn hours.  L is a timer-override float.  K is a pump failure alarm.

The installer advises no grease or chemicals but doesn't state anything specific other than paints and thinning agents and drain cleaners.  Also the typical range of non-flushable or non-dissolvable materials.

I've been using chlorine bleach on whites more often than not for the duration of 17 years (including 9 months of the first occupant).  Also Cascade Institutional/Boil-Out since Nov 2011.

The county requires a maintenance/inspection contract with a servicer, or the homeowner can get certified for DIY.  My contract is with the installer which inspects 3x per year.  They've not yet advised that it needs a sludge pump-out, or reported any problems related to the chlorine ... although it isn't much being that I typically run a whites load monthly-ish and a dishwasher load takes 2 to 4 days to accumulate, more or less depending on cooking and guests.

 

[DADoES]

 
LOL.  Two mins ago I got a call from a fellow with the septic outfit reporting that he had just now done an inspection and found the system to be very, unusually clean ... whatever specific terminology he used.  That's the first time anyone has telephoned.  They always send a report via postal mail.