Understanding Septic - Tank Size

Thanks for all the info! I think a lid for a very old steel septic tank could be a very difficult item to find given that its the lids that always need replacing. Even if I did find one this won't be an easy item to ship. For now I have some old boards on the ground above it to ensure that the lid doesnt cave under a person.

it does not have to be the correct lid, grap some sheet metal, or a garbage can lid [metal]
reinforce with some plywood.

personally, i like my lid to be about 2'' below the grass, i know where it is, and its not a PITA to uncover.

it simple to do,,bricks and mortar, make a square about 2'x2' with a top.

frodo said:

.......it is the sludge from shaving,and washing hair, that i want to keep out of the tank
the critters are a secondary concern

to me, replacing 100' of 6'' perf pipe, is cheaper than replacing a full tank
or, paying to pump it out every 3 or 4 years at $500 plus per wack
this is only my opinion, works for me.

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If it's not going into the tank, where do you think it's going?

slownsteady said:

If it's not going into the tank, where do you think it's going?

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In the scetch he by-passed the tank.

slownsteady said:

If it's not going into the tank, where do you think it's going?

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it's going into the leach field,

A modern 1000 gallon tank most likely won’t be overwhelmed by the extra water from laundry and kitchen and the products that go down the drain with them. The system I talked about and built with a bypass was what I did having in place a perfectly good old time 300 gallon 3 stage tank system circa 1930 that are widely used still. The tank will never wear out but leach fields will plug up with time even in the best systems. I was up against replacing it all and going with a modern to code system and todays code around here barely allows for anything short of a massive mound system. In the 30’s thru the 60’s it was common for a house to be built on a half-acre or less lot with a simple septic system. Over 50 to 70 years these old leach fields have reached saturation point and people are left with hoping the towns extend lines out to them or are forced into a front yard mound that no matter how you try and hide it looks like a golf green with pipes sticking up or worse.

So my repair at the time fell into the category of repairing a grandfathered system. That was a number of years ago and every community has different rules on what is considered a repair now.

I wouldn’t suggest going straight with a bypass to the leach field unless like Frodo you have lots of room for new leach lines in the future when they plug with scum. I have had great luck with separating the soap scum out before the leach field with a smaller tank. It’s all about keeping all solids out of the field. Things like grease are liquid going down but turn solid when they cool down and mix with other products. You need to give them a do that.

I believe the daylight feature in Frodo's leach field is illegal. I'm not a big government guy but on the home septic systems the regulations are there for a reason. If you're on a well and septic you want the water that is going back into the ground or coming out on top of the ground from the daylight pipe to be as clean as possible. The soil will take care of what gets past the tank, but a leach field running to daylight will put some nasty water out into the open.

Daylight is illegal everyplace without a doubt. That’s not to say it isn’t done.

We built a new home for my nephew about 15 years ago and all the modern code was in place at that time. His house sits on one end of 20 wooded acres he owns and he is surrounded by 100’s of acres of farm land and dairy farms. He is one guy living alone on rocky ground with a deep well at least 1000 feet from where he intended to put his septic leach field. We talked to his only neighbor across the street and down the road and asked what they recommended for septic and they said oh we have a 55 gal drum with a leach pipe about 100’ long running back to the field and open ended, “has worked great for 20 years” was the comment.
Keep in mind the farmer drives by at least once a day with a 20’000 gallon liquefied manure tanker and sprays a 100’ swath up and down this close by farm land and his 20 acres are home to many critters and a lot of whitetail deer.

We walk into the county office with a plan for a 1000 gallon tank system with a distribution box and 4 long leach lines set in gravel all capped on the ends and 1000 feet from any water source for a permit and got the old “Are you guys crazy do you think this is 1950?” You need to first do a percolation study and our person will come out and do the test. “OK what is required.” We ask. You need to pick your site and dig a hole 4’x4’x4’ and out from that 30’ in each direction 6 equal spaces you need holes 2’x2’x2’ and then you need (7) 5 gallon buckets of water one for each hole or a tank or something to have that much water available. Then you have to make an appointment for him to stop out and it can’t be an exact time just a day and if he can’t make it he will call. Oh and hopefully it doesn’t rain while you are waiting. So we dig the holes make the appointment wait around a couple days and he shows up. He dumps the bucket in the center hole looks at his watch for 30 seconds and says it doesn’t pass and asks for a $50 check. Reason for failure it absorbed the water to fast. No need for the other 6 holes. What’s next we ask. Pick another location and request another test. We go thru this deal several more times always failing for the same reason too good of a perk. Every time a few days wasted and another 50 bucks. Finally we ask him as we are getting really far from the house if he would suggest a location that would pass and he tells us that’s not his job. But being a nice guy he would make a suggestion and he points to the highest point on the property higher than the house will be and the site of an old bank barn. And said that up on top of there might pass as the soil had been filled in maybe a 100 years ago. So we dig some holes and he comes out and dumps the water in and says yep it passes. So we say what kind of a leach field can we put up there and how do we get the water and materials to the top of this mini mountain. He says that’s not my job but bring your plans down and they will approve or reject them. And then he adds here is a card of a guy that designs systems and his rates start at $500. We rejected that offer and went on line and started our education on sand mound systems and in retrospect we should have wasted the 500 as it took months of back and forth to get a plan approved. We ended up with two 1000 gallon tanks and a lift pump. We had to build an earth ramp to even get dump trucks close to this spot 4 triaxle loads of various products to build the mound out of. He spent nearly as much on a DIY septic system as he did his house and wasted a good part of the nice weather we could have used building the house. All this for the maybe 5 gallons of real waste products a person would make in a month.

I no longer wonder when I see someone buy a dumpy house that has water and septic grandfathered in and then do home renovations that mostly eliminates the original house.

Bud
One of the Appalachian Service Project mobile homes I worked on in WV last year had quite the daylight system for their sewage. It was a straight pipe into a stream. I'm still trying to get the smell out of my nose from the pile of poop at the end of the pipe.

NEVER EVER go wading in a stream or lake in the mountains of WV unless you are high on a mountain. :hide:

Sparky617 said:

Bud
One of the Appalachian Service Project mobile homes I worked on in WV last year had quite the daylight system for their sewage. It was a straight pipe into a stream. I'm still trying to get the smell out of my nose from the pile of poop at the end of the pipe.

NEVER EVER go wading in a stream or lake in the mountains of WV unless you are high on a mountain. :hide:

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Yep and the folks downstream take their drinking water out up stream and waste goes in downstream and on and on it goes. That’s what indoor plumbing did for us. Outhouses were really not a bad idea.

I saw a show on the water treatment plant for a city along the Mississippi River. The requirement on the water released back into the river was something like 100 times cleaner than the requirement for the processing of river water into drinking water. The guy asked the plant manager why are you discharging this super clean water down stream into the river instead of putting it back in with the drinking supply as it was so many times cleaner. His answer was no one wants to drink cleaned up sewage water no matter how clean it is. So they dump it into dirty water at quite an expense getting it so clean and the next city pulls it out and cleans it again and drinks it.

The same water has been here from the beginning of time it just goes around in circles.

Given the regulations and expense of a new system, I think I might go to a composting toilet and gray water system for my guest house.

more than you ever wanted to know.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ih17XFOkSc[/ame]

There was no benefit of any cleaning on this water. It was straight blackwater into the stream. It is fairly common for people to run gray water out into their yards here. This was the first time I ran into blackwater going into the stream. They had small kids that would play there as well. Ewww...