Posted: 1/19/2014 11:59:28 AM EDT
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We have a some what unique septic system. We have a 1000 gal solids tank and a 500 gal lift station that pumps to our drain field across the street. We own half an empty lot for our drain field due to the fact that our back yard is to close to the lake.
Back in September we had the pump in the lift station go out. When this happened we had to have the chamber and lift station pumped before we could figure out what was wrong with the pump. The plumbers that came out to replace the pump put in a pump that was to small and didn't have enough head pressure. So back to square one we went a week later when the lift station was full of water and the pump couldn't keep up. I found a local supplier and they helped me get a pump that would work for our situation. This time I replaced it my self and we've been good ever since. Because the I wanted to know more about when and how our system was running. I found a monitoring system that allows me to monitor via my server when our pump is running and for how long. This system also will alert me if the pump runs for too long or if it hasn't ran for a period of time. It had the ability to add extra sensors so I threw one on our cistern water pump. Last night one of our toilet flaps must have gotten stuck because our water pump ran from 10:00pm to 12:00pm. And our septic pump ran almost every 1hour until this morning. Normally it will run 2 times a day and 3 or 4 on the weekends due to laundry/cleaning. Today the system seems to be running more frequently. I'm assuming this is because our solids tank is water logged. I walked the drain field and there are no signs of over saturation or pooling water. Should we try to reduce our usage for a day or two and let things settle back to normal? Should we have the solids tank pumped again or will it settle back to normal. We do have a filter so the solids can't get to the lift station side so the bacteria should stay. Sorry for the long post I wanted to give as much info as possible. |
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I have a very similar setup and although I can't say I have an answer that would help you, I do periodically check my lift station (since it is critical and can't fail for long), and if it seems good I can usually be assured that the solids tank is also good. But they are side by side and it is easy to check too (for me). But the lift station is where I look first if there is an issue. Now if your sensors indicate it is running more than normal I would ask myself first if maybe it got an extra workout (guests, more rain..melting snow than normal etc) recently? Also, if there was a problem with the solids it really shouldn't be feeding the lift station at all and would run less and so that (to me) would indicate that maybe there is an outside leak. Maybe in the lift station tank itself? |