Septic System Saga

Back in October, it rained. A lot. How much? Over 11 inches. On average, Springfield gets about 36 inches of rain in a year. "Yes," you say. "That's a lot of rain. So?"

Well, with the ground saturated, we discovered on October 15 that we could no longer flush our toilets. As we eventually learned, our septic system had gone to the Great Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Sky.

We lived without a septic system for weeks. It rained. It rained some more. Then it rained some more.

Finally, on December 7, I came home to this beautiful sight!

That's the new septic tank sitting in our backyard! We had to wait a few more days, but then on Friday, December 11, I came home to another beautiful sight!

The main septic tank was finally installed! There was still an overflow tank and leach field to install, as well as plumbing hookups to be made, but things were finally underway!

Dawn looks a bit shocked (and cold!) at the transformation of the back yard. It will get better, Dawn! Well, not until Spring at the earliest, but it will get better eventually!

The new septic tank was installed near the back right corner of the house. You can see the top of the main tank, as well as the inlet pipe leading toward the house.

Of course, things remained like that for Saturday and Sunday, but they were back the next week to install the secondary tank and the leach field.

Normally, with an aerated system, the water that comes out could just be discharged into a ditch or down a hillside. In our case, there wasn't any appropriate place to discharge it, so a "small" (two-thirds size) leach field was needed.

This is one of the three 90-foot laterals that were installed for the leach field.

The tank on the right is the main septic tank. The tank on the left is the overflow tank.

The green pipe is the inlet from the house to the septic tank. Unfortunately, there was no way they could avoid the curtain drain that rain along the back of the house, so they had to cut through it, then install the black pipe to repair it when they were done.

At long last, on Wednesday, December 16, the plumber connected the house to the new septic system, and we were once again able to flush toilets with abandon! When I came home, I flushed a toilet twice for no reason whatsoever! I never thought that I would look forward to doing the dishes, but having dirty dishes piled on every available surface for two months will do strange things to one's attitude. We can also do laundry at home, rather than hauling everything to the laundromat. And I can take a nice long shower whenever I want to!

Its work was done, but with the ground still muddy, the backhoe sat in our backyard waiting for things to dry out, so it wouldn't do more damage to our yard while driving out. Instead, we got two inches of snow. They finally got it out today, so our 2+ month septic saga is finally over!

Now we just have to pay the bill.

Comments

[ross]

Most importantly, did all this construction result in a huge mound of dirt that Orlando can sled down? :)

[Wally Hartshorn]

Fortunately, no. I say "fortunately" because I remember how dirty you and I got playing on that mound of dirt that resulted from digging the basement for Dad's house. :-)

Actually, I still can't really tell what the backyard looks like because we've had snow on the ground since Christmas! And it doesn't look like it will be going away any time soon.