Septic Maintenance

[mikeduf]

Thanks all for that info,
that's good stuff to know.
I've been looking around the Northern California area around Sebastopol which is primarily Farm country and very old homes.
The few that I have seen on my last tour up there seemed pretty strange to me as far as modern septic systems go to my knowledge; Meaning a lot of hoses and pipes and valves and pump motors extruding out of the ground which makes me think of high maintenance, or perhaps these are much easier to maintain with external hardware.
The journey continues, but now I am armed with a little more knowledge.

 

[Donald]

Thanks all for that info,
that's good stuff to know.
I've been looking around the Northern California area around Sebastopol which is primarily Farm country and very old homes.
The few that I have seen on my last tour up there seemed pretty strange to me as far as modern septic systems go to my knowledge; Meaning a lot of hoses and pipes and valves and pump motors extruding out of the ground which makes me think of high maintenance, or perhaps these are much easier to maintain with external hardware.
The journey continues, but now I am armed with a little more knowledge.

Ask the town building inspector what kind of septic is required. A normal or engineered?

 

[Bighorn2500]

1250 gallon system here, one year after buying the house I had it sucked out. Was $385 then, I had to dig it up myself to avoid extra cost. It was dang near full, another item the previous owner lied about on the sales disclosure statement, “was done six months ago my a**”!

I Installed two risers off amazon right after they were done. I use the septic active bacteria packs monthly or the active dry yeast the inspector recommended. I should probably take a peek as it was about three years ago I think.

 

[walterjay]

Note to all:

When purchasing a house always have the septic system inspected and certified.

Have it done by a reputable septic system repair company. They know what to look for.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

So as I mentioned elsewhere I cut all the silly riser protective pipes down to closer to ground level. Much nicer!

The three end clean out pipe caps I inspected my unscrewing. Nothing note worthy. Will back flush in a few days.

For giggles I bought a Rid-X tablets box for monthly treatment and flushed all of them at once. I know, I know.

So then yesterday I decided to backflush. Open the cap with hose ready and there is a a decent amount of CRUD pushed up against one of the cap. Wow, was not there before!! The other two nothing. Was it the Rid-X??

Anyway I back flushed and I figured some stuff must have been washed out of the lines, better or worse, just back into the final receiving tank.

Last night I added a bottle of the Roebic drain line cleaner.

Next year is pump year, but that was fun.

What a crappy topic to start a multi-page thread on, Pablo. Isn’t there a new oil to talk about or something?

 

[Delta]

In my township I'm required to pump every 3 years. I think about 99% of homes on septic around here have risers. At some point someone did some home-made riser apparatus...

Looks just fine from the outside, but open it up and you can see the old home-made riser they did maaaany years ago. The old concrete lid fell apart and was replaced with the plastic style several years ago when they replaced the line from the house to the tank.

System is 60 years old and I try to get it pumped every two years. Old single line drainfield with possibly a drywell at the end. There's no county records to really know. Trying to keep this one going as the only system I can now install in my area is a sand mound type and those are some serious $$$$.

 

[Donald]

In my township I'm required to pump every 3 years. I think about 99% of homes on septic around here have risers. At some point someone did some home-made riser apparatus...

Looks just fine from the outside, but open it up and you can see the old home-made riser they did maaaany years ago. The old concrete lid fell apart and was replaced with the plastic style several years ago when they replaced the line from the house to the tank.

System is 60 years old and I try to get it pumped every two years. Old single line drainfield with possibly a drywell at the end. There's no county records to really know. Trying to keep this one going as the only system I can now install in my area is a sand mound type and those are some serious $$$$.

Sand mounds look ugly?

 

[Delta]

Sand mounds look ugly?

Very. It will pretty much make that portion of the yard un-usable. And the system is roughly $35,000-$40,000. All newer home or homes that have had a replacement are all sand mound. They could add a pump tank to my system, but the "trash" tank is iffy at this point in its life.

 

[Pablo]

Very. It will pretty much make that portion of the yard un-usable. And the system is roughly $35,000-$40,000. All newer home or homes that have had a replacement are all sand mound. They could add a pump tank to my system, but the "trash" tank is iffy at this point in its life.

We see ours, indeed can't grow trees on it for sure, but keep it green and it's just there, not scary ugly.

Agree on costs = crazy! Ours is gonna last!!

 

[walterjay]

The Amish say that you should throw a dead chicken into the tank on occasion to activate things. No kidding.