Septic tank issues.
Discussion
Hi
I've only experienced the soakaway type before where you essentially ignore it, but the property we've recently moved into must have some sort of problem as it was emptied six weeks ago and needs doing again. The tank contains around 20,000 litres and for two people this seems excessive?
Assuming there is a problem, does anyone have any ideas as to where to begin the investigation?
There is an additional pipe inlet/outlet at close to the top of the tank so I'm assuming this is the soakaway or not?
Is emptying every six weeks normal for two people?
All answers gratefully received.
I've only experienced the soakaway type before where you essentially ignore it, but the property we've recently moved into must have some sort of problem as it was emptied six weeks ago and needs doing again. The tank contains around 20,000 litres and for two people this seems excessive?
Assuming there is a problem, does anyone have any ideas as to where to begin the investigation?
There is an additional pipe inlet/outlet at close to the top of the tank so I'm assuming this is the soakaway or not?
Is emptying every six weeks normal for two people?
All answers gratefully received.
Check your drains VERY carefully. Sounds like some of the rainwater is going to the tank instead of to soakaways, and/or any soakaway overflow from the septic tank is blocked.
We have an old-school brick cess / septic pit/ tank fing, and in theory the only stuff that goes down to it is from household drains, all rainwater goes into separate soakaways, and the cess pit has its own mahooosive soakaway to leech off excess water so in theory only filling slowly with solids not just with water.
However, putting a JCB through the cesspit soakaway halted things for a bit, and we also found the kitchen drains backing up (dishwasher / kitchen sink) as the previous owner had for no apparent reason decided to plumb them to the rainwater soakaway which was thus backed up and blocked utterly with soap and fat - another 6" of pipe and it would have gone to the "proper" drains.
We have an old-school brick cess / septic pit/ tank fing, and in theory the only stuff that goes down to it is from household drains, all rainwater goes into separate soakaways, and the cess pit has its own mahooosive soakaway to leech off excess water so in theory only filling slowly with solids not just with water.
However, putting a JCB through the cesspit soakaway halted things for a bit, and we also found the kitchen drains backing up (dishwasher / kitchen sink) as the previous owner had for no apparent reason decided to plumb them to the rainwater soakaway which was thus backed up and blocked utterly with soap and fat - another 6" of pipe and it would have gone to the "proper" drains.
I suspect that your soakaway pipes need jetting , ie the exits from the last chamber .
We started to suffer the same 2 years ago, all 4 tanks full of water , (we do have most of our rainwater passing through the chambers )
I had the 4 outlets jetted and all is fine , the final chamber is at the invert level now even after the rainnfall we have had in the last 48 hours.
We started to suffer the same 2 years ago, all 4 tanks full of water , (we do have most of our rainwater passing through the chambers )
I had the 4 outlets jetted and all is fine , the final chamber is at the invert level now even after the rainnfall we have had in the last 48 hours.
The people who bought our house recently have contacted me to say they're experiencing similar symptoms to yours, although we never had any issues with it. Emptying a septic tank every six weeks should definitely not be necessary - once a year at the very most frequent in my experience.
Busamav said:
I suspect that your soakaway pipes need jetting , ie the exits from the last chamber .
We started to suffer the same 2 years ago, all 4 tanks full of water , (we do have most of our rainwater passing through the chambers )
I had the 4 outlets jetted and all is fine , the final chamber is at the invert level now even after the rainnfall we have had in the last 48 hours.
Thanks for the responses so far. Are the outlet pipes situated at the bottom of the tank? Additionally, could this be a cess pit? It looks like a tank in that I think its a steel structure but I'm not 100% sure of the differences visually?We started to suffer the same 2 years ago, all 4 tanks full of water , (we do have most of our rainwater passing through the chambers )
I had the 4 outlets jetted and all is fine , the final chamber is at the invert level now even after the rainnfall we have had in the last 48 hours.
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