I recently started having little panicked moments thinking about what lurked inside the ground under my yard. My wife and I purchased our first home about six years ago. At the time of the purchase, we wisely chose to have the previous owner pump the septic tank. Since then, we’ve kind of ignored this important process of home maintenance.

A few months ago, we started seeing large piles of dirt and small earth-moving machines sitting on once groomed lawns. Inquiring with the owners, we found they were having some problems with their septic systems. The homes in our neighborhood are about 26 years old, which puts them in the “at risk” age for drain field clogs and septic back flow. A few shared grisly stories of being in the shower when undesirable refuse came up through the drain. Yuck.

Needless to say, I quickly looked up the company that had serviced the septic when we moved in and scheduled an appointment. The next day, I was standing in the front yard discussing the finer points of septic systems, how you can nurse an old system along, and how to avoid back flow.

First, some quick facts about conventional septic systems:

• They typically have two major features, the tank and the drain field.
• The tank holds solids (which settle at the bottom) and scum (which floats at the top).
• The drain field takes liquid effluent from the tank and distributes it across ground soil or gravel trenches.
• The more people using the system, the more often you should have it pumped.
• The most common point of failure is a clogged drain field.

The gentleman who pumped our tank noted the recent increase in septic failure in the neighborhood was directly related to the age of the homes. A typical septic system with moderate usage will last somewhere around 20 years. He defined moderate usage as < 50 gallons per person per day or < 200 gallons total per day. He noted that while our tank did not appear to have any problems, we should be careful. Ever since we moved in, we have followed the common sense rules against putting garbage down the toilets, using the garbage disposal, etc. Those useful tips have prevented us from having to repair the system so far.

In addition to the common rules, our septic professional offer some further guidelines:

• Have the tank pumped every year. This, at first, seemed a little self-serving; however, a quick Google of “septic system maintenance” revealed his advice is dead on for the number of people in our home.
• Spread out high water usage activities over the whole week (do 1-2 loads of laundry a day over the week instead of 8 loads on one day).
• Don’t pour grease/cooking fats down the drain.
• Use organic soaps/detergent that completely break down. A little research into the meaning of “safe for septic” revealed a large gap between claims and practice. So be wary of manufacturer claims. Consumer reporting sites will be helpful here.
• Look into installing rain gutters for systems close to a home that has excessive rain water washing over the drain field.
• Installing an additional filter (a newer innovation for septic systems) on the sanitary tee outlet would increase the life of the drain field.

With the possibility of system failure looming, he offered a few key indicators that something was wrong:

• Sewage back flow into toilets, sinks or tubs. No brainer here.
• Slowly draining tubs and sinks, particularly after rain or laundry.
• The smell of raw sewage along with soggy soil around or downhill of the tank and drain field.
• Broken or cracked pipes sticking out of the ground (for low pressure pipe systems).
• Water tests indicating biological contamination or an increase in infections and illness from swimming in nearby lakes or rivers.

The best way to keep this common household nightmare from striking is to have your system inspected and pumped. Good maintenance will pay for itself down the road.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 7:36 am and is filed under Owning a Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.