Hi All,

New to the group and hoping to find some guidance. My septic tank is a typical 1000 gal with the divider in the middle. Leach field is about 70 feet from the tanks with what looks like 4 laterals according to the greener grass lines. The home was built in 2004. We moved in 6 years ago. This summer we are having a drought and a couple months back noticed a wet are with a bit of pooling. We wanted to watch to see how things progressed and now the pooling is gone but is still wet at the end of the 1st run. An area about 3x6 is soft and saturated. My wife mentioned the other day she could hear water running into the septic tank but we were both outside and no water was running in the house. On thursday we are getting the tank pumped, as we do annually. This weekend I intend to dig up the d-box and see if there are any clogs in there.

We have called 4 different companies to come look. Only 1 showed up and they said for $1200 they will dig up the wet spot and the d-box and see if its fixable.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Cheers

 

If you have your tank pumped annually that is great and will probably spare you from major problems. I would make sure that you have a filter on the outlet end of your septic tank. It is cheap insurance to make sure nothing bad makes it out into the leach field.

If you have wetness at the end of the first lateral I would inspect the distribution box. Gravity system distribution boxes are very sensitive to being out of level which can send all or more of the flow to one lateral instead of evenly distributing among them all. If you find that yours is out of level you can dig the whole thing up and re-level or there are some easier options.

One option is plastic disks that you pound/push into the outlet pipes. They have a hole that is off center. Instead of leveling the box you rotate the plastic to get the drain hole to the needed elevation.


There are also V shaped plastic wiers that go on each of the outlet pipes. The tall, thin V design greatly minimizes the affect being out of level has on the effluent flow. Some, like in this photos, have an adjustable height dam so you can adjust the flow after they are installed.

 

The only way to get a filter on the outlet end of the tank is to get in the tank. Cannot reach it from the lid. Also there is a pump in the tank so no place to attach a filter. I did some probing yesterday with a 2.5 foot rod and did not hit the box. Gonna be a deep dig.

 

If you are hearing water running into the septic tank and nobody is using water in the house then you need to find out where that water is coming from. Figure this out before putting weirs or disks in the distribution box .

 

Is there any way the water is running from the field back into the tank and that's what your wife heard? Don't know if that would be possible but I think I read that that can happen - but I think that happens if the field is really saturated. Not sure though.

I think I disagree with Pilot Dane a little bit - well not exactly disagree - but unless you have a lot of people in the house I think getting it pumped every year is an overkill. Although you didn't say it was just you and your wife.

 

Now you say you have a pump in the tank. That means you probably have a separate septic tank and pump tank and it also explains why you can hear water running. This also means you probably do not have a traditional distribution box.

The effluent filter goes on the outlet of the septic tank, not the pump tank.

 

Finally managed to get someone out to have a look. They are very confident I do not have an issue with the septic system. A few months back we had problems with a toilet that would continually run. They think that and the fact that my yard is sloped back to that corner it just got over saturated. We also have bad soil for drainage. They want to relevel the yard and he is sure that will fix the issue. Winter is coming and we can get -40 here. Need to make sure it is dried up so it dosnt freeze. The house is a 3 bedroom 3 bath. 3 people live here but with the hot summer we just had we had people over all the time to hang out in the pool.