Dbarrm
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Well the saga continues. On the 24th I had my septic tank pumped out. All was good until Thursday night when it backed up AGAIN. Well I called around to a few places and asked a few questions. 84 where are you when I need you. I was told to find the drain field and go to the farthest point and dig till I found it and see if it had standing water in it or not. Well low and behold it had standing water. I dug lots of wholes and it seems that every run of the drain field is saturated. What to do now. I'm not going to pay thousands of dollars to replace the drain field when we are going to get city water in a year or two and have to pay for that also. Baby the system is not an option. I have 8 people in my house and if we all cut our water in half it will still be to much. So what to do
..
Idea
THE RETURN OF THE JEDI PLUMBER
I decided I was going to extend my drain field myself. Seems easy enough, find the pipe coming out of the tank to the drain field and tap off of it into a different part of the yard that is dry. The tank is in the front of the house in the middle of the yard with the drain field on the left side if looking at the house from the street. I got lucky and found the pipe coming out of the tank with only about 10 min of digging. The pipe came out of the front of the tank and then took a 90 into the drain field. All I had to do was tap into this pipe. Easier said then done. The level of the tank was above the level of the pipe due to the saturation of my drain field. Also when I dug all the dirt out around the pipe coming out of the tank I found that that pipe wasnt a tight fit and the crap water was coming out from around the pipe filling in what I had dug with crap water up to the level of the tank. So what I ended up doing was continue to dig the trench letting the water flow into it as I dug until the tank drained enough to be at a level below the drain pipe from the tank. That didnt happen until I finished the entire trench. Now this trench is about 1/1/2 foot wide and about 3 feet deep. When I stopped digging the tank and drain field back flow had all soaked into the new trench. I'm telling you digging in all this crap water and the smell was the nastiest thing I have ever done. New respect for plumbers. Now to figure out what I needed to do next. I had the wife go to Home Depot and get me some 1 ¼ PCV pipe and fittings. I drilled large holes all in and around the PVC and then wrapped it fine screen, attached all the pipe together and set it up to be laid in the new trench. I then lowered the trench about 3 inches below the level of the drain field feed pipe and filled it in with river rock up to the level of the pipe. Next I cut a hole in the drain field pipe to fin in the new PVC. I put the PVC in the trench and moved some rock around to make sure it was all level or on a down slope and pushed the PVC into the pipe a tad. I then wrapped this all in screen to make sure nothing would fall into these pipes. Now I put more river rock into the trench to cover all the pipes up about 3 inches of rock. Creating my new drain field. I left the ends of the trench uncovered so see if my system would work. Around the junction I put in extra rock for the leakage from the pipe joints and the leak from around the pipe coming from the concrete tank. Now for the test. I had the wife flush both bathrooms and run water in the sink to fill up the tank so it would drain into the drain field. Would you believe it, I had water dripping out of the holes and ends of the PVC. (I also had dug a hole about 5 feet away in the old drain field to make sure it would still be getting water and it was also. Now I put in the rest of the rock at the ends. Covered this all with 3 layers of screen to keep the dirt out and filled in the trench and replaced the grass. That night I kept the septic tank cap off to see how the level was and did a major test on the system. I had the wife wash the stuff I was wearing during this whole process and I took a shower. All the water that went into the tank flowed out with no backups. Its been 2 days now and still the level in the tank is staying where it should. With us cutting down on water and the addition to the drain field I think we should be ok until city water comes in next year. And if I have to ill add more lines off the main line I dug.
What fun I had this weekend.
Dan
Idea
THE RETURN OF THE JEDI PLUMBER
I decided I was going to extend my drain field myself. Seems easy enough, find the pipe coming out of the tank to the drain field and tap off of it into a different part of the yard that is dry. The tank is in the front of the house in the middle of the yard with the drain field on the left side if looking at the house from the street. I got lucky and found the pipe coming out of the tank with only about 10 min of digging. The pipe came out of the front of the tank and then took a 90 into the drain field. All I had to do was tap into this pipe. Easier said then done. The level of the tank was above the level of the pipe due to the saturation of my drain field. Also when I dug all the dirt out around the pipe coming out of the tank I found that that pipe wasnt a tight fit and the crap water was coming out from around the pipe filling in what I had dug with crap water up to the level of the tank. So what I ended up doing was continue to dig the trench letting the water flow into it as I dug until the tank drained enough to be at a level below the drain pipe from the tank. That didnt happen until I finished the entire trench. Now this trench is about 1/1/2 foot wide and about 3 feet deep. When I stopped digging the tank and drain field back flow had all soaked into the new trench. I'm telling you digging in all this crap water and the smell was the nastiest thing I have ever done. New respect for plumbers. Now to figure out what I needed to do next. I had the wife go to Home Depot and get me some 1 ¼ PCV pipe and fittings. I drilled large holes all in and around the PVC and then wrapped it fine screen, attached all the pipe together and set it up to be laid in the new trench. I then lowered the trench about 3 inches below the level of the drain field feed pipe and filled it in with river rock up to the level of the pipe. Next I cut a hole in the drain field pipe to fin in the new PVC. I put the PVC in the trench and moved some rock around to make sure it was all level or on a down slope and pushed the PVC into the pipe a tad. I then wrapped this all in screen to make sure nothing would fall into these pipes. Now I put more river rock into the trench to cover all the pipes up about 3 inches of rock. Creating my new drain field. I left the ends of the trench uncovered so see if my system would work. Around the junction I put in extra rock for the leakage from the pipe joints and the leak from around the pipe coming from the concrete tank. Now for the test. I had the wife flush both bathrooms and run water in the sink to fill up the tank so it would drain into the drain field. Would you believe it, I had water dripping out of the holes and ends of the PVC. (I also had dug a hole about 5 feet away in the old drain field to make sure it would still be getting water and it was also. Now I put in the rest of the rock at the ends. Covered this all with 3 layers of screen to keep the dirt out and filled in the trench and replaced the grass. That night I kept the septic tank cap off to see how the level was and did a major test on the system. I had the wife wash the stuff I was wearing during this whole process and I took a shower. All the water that went into the tank flowed out with no backups. Its been 2 days now and still the level in the tank is staying where it should. With us cutting down on water and the addition to the drain field I think we should be ok until city water comes in next year. And if I have to ill add more lines off the main line I dug.
What fun I had this weekend.
Dan
