What is this?
#1
03-04-15, 06:12 AM
What is this?
I live in a town that has a mix of city sewer and septic tanks. I've been seeing a new style of drain field being installed on smallish lots where a "normal" drain field would not fit. This morning I took a picture and I was hoping someone could explain how these new ones work as well as what I'm used to seeing in recent years -- huge drain fields that take up as much or more area as the house.
This one is only maybe 30 feet long and about 15 feet wide. It's covered in visqueen and you can see that it is not very deep.
This one is only maybe 30 feet long and about 15 feet wide. It's covered in visqueen and you can see that it is not very deep.
#2
03-04-15, 08:46 AM
Group Moderator
It's a type of engineered septic system. The chambers take the place of a traditional leach field. There are plastic domes with slits cut in the sides and top. Usually the white material is not sheet plastic (visqueen) but a non woven polyester fabric that breathes and lets water pass through. Usually effluent is pumped in through orifices to distribute equal amounts of liquid to each chamber. The liquid floods out along the smooth, dirt floor of the chamber. Some of it soaks down into the soil and out the sides but in some systems a significant portion of the water evaporates up through the top.
#3
03-04-15, 08:58 AM
Looks like one of the Presby Raised Bed Leach Fields that has become popular around here. Here's a video from Presby EnviroTech in New Hampshire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvNoekh_nZk
I'm sure there are many other that are similar, and have received approval by the waste water authorities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvNoekh_nZk
I'm sure there are many other that are similar, and have received approval by the waste water authorities.
#4
03-04-15, 12:05 PM
Group Moderator
#5
03-04-15, 03:10 PM
It's a bit low there and some houses have above ground drain fields, but not on this street.
I saw an installation one time that had 4 levels of 3"(?) pipe and was only 10x10. People here like to use all of their lot for building and the city allows 75% usage not including the pool, so not being hooked up is a disadvantage.
This is the only place I ever lived where kids play in the street, not because they don't have a backyard, but because the backyard is full of pool. "Upscale" don'cha know, but us that are really upscale are hooked up and need not concern ourselves with such mundane matters as to where our waste goes.
I saw an installation one time that had 4 levels of 3"(?) pipe and was only 10x10. People here like to use all of their lot for building and the city allows 75% usage not including the pool, so not being hooked up is a disadvantage.
This is the only place I ever lived where kids play in the street, not because they don't have a backyard, but because the backyard is full of pool. "Upscale" don'cha know, but us that are really upscale are hooked up and need not concern ourselves with such mundane matters as to where our waste goes.
#6
03-05-15, 03:41 AM
This is the only place I ever lived where kids play in the street,
Because of the high water table all the septic systems were above ground [mound systems]
