New systems are bad enough but have one go bad, new ones seem easy.

When I bought my house some 22 years ago, the house was only 5 years old.  The septic system passed a VA inspection requirement and I gave it no more thought than that.  Man, I should have.  

My septic system has been having problems for about five years now.  On the side of a large hill, spring and fall, our wet seasons, we get quite a bit of surface water run off and the water table rises which slows my system down.  So there we are, wettest times of the year and we're in water conservation mode so as to not overtax our septic system.  This year was a disaster as my system filled, then backed up, not quite to the point we couldn't use it but we were far beyond normal water rationing.

I'm talking no washing clothes period, taking turns on taking baths to allow time, and the wife doing dishes the old way in tubs carrying the tubs out to dump them.  It was "Guys go in the woods to pee."

i start calling all these repair guys.  They came out here with their metal rods, poked the ground, then said, "Yep shot, you need a new system."  like no big deal. One by one, they'd tell me of this magic new system, thousands upon thousands of dollars, electricians, and power.    Once they started in on over there or over there, I'd have to explain, that's not my land.  The way my house is situated on that hill, there's only one place it can go.  Then they'd give me the deer in the headlights look.  "What you going to do condemn my house?" I'd ask.  Now they started talking even bigger money.

Finally this guy comes out, he doesn't do septic work, just pumps and flushes.  A country type fella, I take a liking to him right away.  He recommends this company that all they do is repairs.  They work, like his company, for most of the banks making loans and reality companies, the housing market.  

This guy comes out, bang first one of all those people to use his rod and he actually finds the leech beds.  Instantly I know all those other guys are friggen idiots.  We get to know each that first meeting, that's about it, because he needs to go to the courthouse and get the septic system plan.  "Wow" what a different idea, duh?  

Now I find out the questions I should have asked 22 years ago.  Apparently my house was not the original house on this property.  There was a house that was much smaller that burn down and had a one leech bed system.  When they built my house, the county had them add another leech bed.  Here's the kicker, the old one was upstream of the new one so instead of dealing with a 25 year old leech bed, I have a 40 year old one.  A 40 year old one that has eventually failed with age and now the water flow can't reach the newer one.

The contractor immediately draws me a plan and quotes me after all those $15-$20K solutions was like amazingly low and made amazingly simple sense.  He would put in a chamber type new leech bed upstream of the failed bed, then overflow it to the newer other leech bed.  I research chamber systems and  find out they require less land for the same functionality.  Pretty much, they don't depend on gravel but simply retain a crap load of water in chambers allowing the time for it to leech down into the ground, dirt.  All the gravel does in conventional systems is the same thing, hold the water till it goes in the ground.  

Now normally because a chamber system works differently they require 30% less space but in my case, the contractor recommended we do the entire 60 ft same length as the original leech beds.  As he dug the cross trench to run the overflow to the lower bed he hit the clogged bed.  It was like big underground tank of water.  He left little dams until he could open up the lower bed.  When he opened it to run his pipe, the water flowed into the lower bed.  The lower bed took it all right down.  

Here's a link on how "Chamber" systems work.  Chamber Systems.  

As much as we talk about cabins and stuff, I thought you guy may want to see this.  This gives you some options conventional corrugated pipe with holes and gravel doesn't.  Depending on your soil type (ours is bad here, a lot of clay which is why the 100%), that 30-50% space savings can be quite important.  

Now all things come with a catch.  That isn't the cheap run down to Lowes black French drain pipe.  Material wise, it is more costly than the black drain pipe and gravel.  Because it doesn't use the gravel, it saves quite a bit in installation time.  This guy was hell on wheels with that small backhoe and despite my system being 4' down, he was in and out of here in four hours.  That would have been a whole day or two days having to have gravel brought in and handled separately.

I like this solution.  It makes perfect sense.  The way its setup, given time to allow the old bed, now middle bed, to rest (bacteria do its thing), its not that hard, (hopefully years from now) to open that bed back up too if needed.  It would be as simple as digging a hole, take out a section of PVC and replacing it with black sewer pipe.  I'd have then 3 beds.  

Anyway, like all septic solutions, time will tell how well this fix works.  I am cautiously optimistic for certainly tying into an old leech bed putting the newer one second has to be right up there with I think the drunken plumber who did my plumbing must have been involved.  

Tj

 

I hear you.  My confidence in all those others was totally shot to hell the minute I realized they had no frigging idea what they were doing.

I got lucky, this guy was pretty darn good.  He went out of his way to make this as painless on me as possible, working around trees etc.  4' down, roots have never been my problem.  One guy suggested pulling up the old bed.  Man, what a nightmare that is.  Here you have to haul it off and get it disposed as hazardous waste.  

This way the old bed stays where it is.  It now has time to work slowly and eventually be useful again, which leaves a future fix in the wings.  

Anyway, its pretty apparent the entire industry is geared around either new systems or fly by night solutions and around here anyway the guy with the neat equipment, nice web page, big name references, all the licenses, written guarantees,and using the newer stuff on repairs works for the housing industry.  I guess I'm lucky the housing market is down right now and houses not selling as well.

This guy does two of these repairs a day, mostly on getting houses ready to be sold after inspections.  

Tj

Sounds familiar.  I have an empty lot over the hill in front of me and a cow pasture across the road.  Almost to a man, everyone who came out here told me to get a submersible, drop it half way down my tank so its taking out the cleaner water, and pump it over the hill till I got this sorted out.  

That's exactly what the repair guy did too.  

I figure that lot's going to have some outstanding grass in areas.

BTW, What happens to you is what happens here in wet season.  My tank fills with rain water after a big rain.  Backup in the house would only be if we used too much water, well until, this last one, the leech bed clogged.  Then it took hours for it to drain down enough to flush a couple toilets.  That leach bed had become like a big tank of water.  

Tj

Yep, we ran into her cousin in Ohio.  My brothers loft cabin has the septic system of a 4 bedroom house.  She insisted someone may build a 4 bedroom house there one day.  Seeing there isn't a house like that for about 15-20 miles, good luck with that.

It was hell to talk her out of an aerator.  I don't think she grasped the idea a cabin empty all but a hand full days a year, that pump with no water in it would burn out in nothing flat.

So here we are, a nice hunting cabin, we couldn't use an Invirolet compost toilet in because the county hadn't heard of one so had no provision for it that gets used hunting season and familly events with a 1,000 gallon septic tank and 3 leech beds.  

We figure the leach beds have never seen a drop of sewage.

Meanwhile the guy who owns a septic pump out company and the farm next to our cabin twice a year dumps his trucks on the land so his grass can grow nice for his cows.

Tj

Oh yes, that various places is what I screwed up the first time too.  I remembered seeing the septic system sketch when we bought the house, thought we filed it in the important papers file with the deed, then promptly forgot about it for 22 years.  

When this issue came up, I go looking for it, and can't find a thing.

That put me at a real disadvantage.  You don't even want to get the county EPA people involved in these projects until you have handle on what's happening and some sort of plan.  They're like "Shit Gods" and can wave their hand and whatever they say becomes the plan.  9 times out of 10, that's a new system, the latest greatest technology or the one that tickles their fancy.  

I am sorely convinced laziness is a big factor in this.  It takes more to figure out a solution than simply making a couple probes, wave your hand, and proclaim "I hereby decree, you need a new system."  

Here at my place it would have been a pump system.  That's a new large septic tank the original depth, wired with a submersible pump, a separate circuit for an alarm (not if) when it fails, pump it to a distribution box, then let it gravity drain to shallower fields over my old fields.  

The damn plan didn't make sense other than Billybobjimjacks cousin sells these tanks.  With no downward direction to go and only lateral absorption, even to a layman like me, it was obvious give that system a few years, it would be draining out the side of my hill and a new EPA God would be telling me what I have to do next.

So here I would have been, out a small fortune, replacing submersible pumps 4' under the ground every five years, water coming out over my drive, and into the road.  

Still might have the water problem.  I mean water goes down hill.  I guess its a matter of how long?

Tj

Unfortunately if I learned one thing from this experience, is you really can't tell anything until you start digging.  

From what I've learned 49, that pipe should be PVC and most problems are distribution boxes.  Good news is, pump those out, it usually fixes the problem.  I didn't have that option, no distribution box.  That meant, once we confirmed the main out of the house wasn't the culprit, we were pretty certain my first in series leach bed was clogged. It was too, like an underground lake.  

We had a line clog once.  It was really the same symptoms as a bad leach bed, slow then stops up, but the time involved was days or weeks at most.  On the leach bed, it gradually got worse over years.  In retrospect, the line clog was easy.  We simply snaked it.  Its simply a matter of leach fields are real big and pipes are real small.  

Short of pulling out the rock and cleaning them which is silly really, the only thing that unclogs a leach bed is time, a lot of it, time for bacteria to eat the sludge.  That's why replacing them is a good option.  It's quicker.  Though I see those diversion valve systems as problematic in their own right, they do have some advantages long-term as far as being able to give beds a rest.  Downside, of course, is if you rotate them properly eventually both beds will go about the same time and then you are into a whole new system.  Seeing how those involved push a new system every time, I don't know if that's bad or not.

Sounds like you are on the right path NP.  90% of the contractor battle is having a plan that doesn't involve a whole new system with wires and pumps that need additional servicing every five years.  

Like I said, most of these other guys wouldn't even venture a plan.  It was all "New System", which costs more and they make more money.  Some of these guys either obviously had no idea how these systems work or were blatantly probing in the wrong places to show me I needed a new system.  "No room" they'd say.  Hell now I know I have room for 2-3 more leach fields depending on chamber type of conventional.  

You're going to avoid all that because you know where everything is, what condition they are in, and have a plan.  I had to flip a coin a little on this guy was right.  He was.  As you've seen, its pretty obvious when a bed is not working.  Its like hitting an underground lake.  

As for who, other than the driving the back hoe (big deal on how long it takes) and using a transit, this stuff wasn't rocket science once we had a plan.  This guy was hell on wheels with that backhoe so they were done fast.  3 man crew, he dug the trench, one guy was in it with the transit telling him how deep, one guy carried the Infiltrator sections, as he started a new section digging, the surface guy would hand the chamber down to the guy in the trench, then the trench guy would pick up the transit stick again.  It was a nice even pace assembly line type operation.  They were in and out in under four hours.  

This guy does two repairs a day.  He's making good money by doing volume work.  He totally understood manufacturing.  He hauls his Bobcat on a Cummins flat bed that will fit in any drive.  Little things like that, time thus labor savings.  You do the best work for the least money, sales is no problem.  That's why he has so many people like Realtors and banks giving him references and referrals.   He's in it for the big bucks, volume work.

Most these other guys other than Bobby Joe used him or he had a Yellow Page add, I knew nothing about them or could find out anything.  This guy had a web page, all the licenses, a published guarantee, and drove a nice new truck.  He's got a 500 acre working farm he has to pay for so being the highest price or lowest price but takes forever, just won't work for him.

I avoid contractors that give me that "I'll do this to just get by or buy my next beer" types.  That's unless they're a personal friend and I can ride them like a scalded dog if I have to.  Someone I can't, I want the ambitious guy with a reputation to keep.

Tj

Same problem here.  I have had all sorts of opportunities to have a hole dug or trench for my gray water, but I can't figure out how to do that period.  My house is two floors not a crawl space and the plumbing all goes under a slab.  What lines I have are for the most part combined gray and black.  

I'm talking the only solution I can come up with is run a hose from the washer every time we wash or build an old style wash house like back on the farm days which would go over here with my neighbors about like a brand new outhouse.

Your system is still a baby.  Ten years really should be almost no time for a septic system.  





I don't know what to think on aerobic systems.  Having quite a bit of background both in microbiology and actually waste water treatment plants, I understand the aerobic bacteria like strep and E Coli (normal flora)  are more aggressive (multiply faster, faster metabolism, consume more), however I don't know if that's overall best for the entire system.  Aeration systems seldom include aerating the leach bed.   Seems to me then the system (besides pump burn out) is dependent on water flow more than conventional.  The more flow the higher the dissolved oxygen in the leach beds.  Stop the flow, the bed then would have to transition as aerobic bacteria stops growing, then anerobic would have to begin.  

Probably work fine at my house, but like I posted before at a remote cabin or vacation home, I'd "run Forest run."

Tj

They sure are, however they don't use leach beds and have a constant flow of water.  Their clarifiers are also above ground where they can constantly be monitored and serviced.  

An interesting in between is the systems they put on large house boats now.  They're aerobic but you can shut them down with a switch if there's no flow or the boat is in storage. They, of course, don't have leach beds either.

Both type systems also you control what effluent is released and when.  In other words, once the water is so clean then its released.  A gravity feed system doesn't work like that.  Even if you aerate so it eats solids faster at peak usage times some of those suspended or dissolved solids is going to get into your leach bed.    

Like I said, I don't know.  It follows at average working its better but could be worse in atypical use, like no flow at all or peak flow.  What I do know is pumps wear out about every five to 10 years.  That's why its required to have alarms.  Even this leach bed of mine that wore out had 40 years to do it.  

I just don't know.  Is the aerobic faster?  Sure it is.  Is it enough to handle you daily in-fluent of waste and eat at your sludge enough to open it up again?  I have no idea.  That's a matter of how much goes in and how much the microbes can eat in a given time.

I can tell you its slow and engineered bacteria helps speed it up, but even industrial clarifiers have to be pumped out from time to time and its sludge dried and disposed of.  

What I can tell you is I tried engineered bugs on my clogged bed.  I'm sure they probably helped some but in my case with that second bed blocked off, that first one was just too far gone for that bacteria to handle what was already down there and what I was still putting in there, even on rationing.  It was steadily getting worse. If I had a diversion valve and not in series, probably I could have diverted to the other bed, limped along for about a year, then opened that first bed back up.  I didn't have that option.  

What we're talking about is trying something better then crossing our fingers and hoping it works.  Unfortunately what I gather from all the people I've talked to is unless we can quantify the whatever we are trying, its a gamble and unless we can just stop putting more in there, probably a long shot at best.  For whatever we try to work, it has to be so much better it not only eats what new stuff we put in there but the sludge that's already there.  

That takes us full circle if it could handle it in the first place, we wouldn't have the problem.  With me, it was a, excuse the pun, crappy design to start with.  Two beds in series had the new bed only handling overflow and the old one, already 20 years old, trying to handle the majority of the load.  

I only go through all this because it helps to go down this entire thinking process before we try something.  Heck, I was thinking of trying some industrial bug which were $400 just for the bugs, but in my case after I learned how mine was designed, I knew the odds were way against me.  

I'd do some research and math before I'd invest, if anything like researching a race horses record before you bet to get a better feel.  How much better is aerobic versus anerobic?  How much sludge do you figure is down there?  How much is still going in?  How much time do you have before your living is unsustainable?   Answering those type questions, will give you a better idea of why to try your gamble.  

Compared to residential, industrial is easy.  It has so much more overkill built in and you have so much more control over what you doing as it happens.  Everything is measured and quantified to how much is in there to how much is going out with the effluent.  Residential is totally based on overkill with no monitoring, other than an a pump out, until things go wrong.

Tough question really.  What I can tell you is my easy fix gamble, just didn't work.  I then got lucky that I didn't have to do the worse case because I found someone who specialized in repairs not total new systems.  Even then, I took the time to figure out what he was doing, why, how its suppose to work, then bought into the plan.  

Tj