Post by Writer's Panic on Nov 25, 2024 12:18:46 GMT -5
And yep, there has been no problem with backup since anything meant for the septic tank has no interruption to flowing on out into this huge deep area.
Looking at this I can see what appears to be a cave like hole well beneath the earth's surface back behind where the giant hose comes out.
do you use the product you flush in the house to keep the pipes and the septic clear?...it stops roots from entering the areas...hardware store 20 dollars....once a year
i have a bud up north who is slowly losing it....he is ghosting me because i'm not anti government....but he doesnt mind cashing gov cheques....anyway he is so paranoid about his septic he burns his used toilet paper instead of flushing it
Yikes, I can so relate. For 20 years we had no problems with the septic system. In the last few years all kinds of stuff has changed. For one, the location is inconvenient and requires a surcharge to run 50' of collection tubing. Keep in mind that was not a problem for 20 years, and we're required by the county to have the thing pumped every 5 years.
About 2 winters ago we had the septic tank freeze at the inlet, backing water up badly. This had never happened before, but we had a string of hard freezes. I keep a space heater set to 40F to keep the basement and all of the plumbing above freezing. Being a belt & suspenders thinker I left the kitchen sink dripping. That's what fooked me. Even though it worked for 20 years.
I was dripping cold water down the drain, slowly. The distance from the house to the tank is 14' but the depth of the inlet pipe is only a foot or so. This made the perfect ice berg in my inlet pipe that was allowed to build as successive layers froze. The slug was strong as a weld and had to be broken out with an air hammer.
If it happens again I'm going to open the cleanout port and take a look inside with a waterproof camera I used a lot in wastewater work. Then I just have to figure the best way to thaw a massive septic popscicle! I'm leaning toward a water heater element, since they're cheap. Otherwise I might try an infrared heat source. I tried to break the thing down with hot water, but I couldn't maintain flow from the water heater long enough before it wasn't hot enough.
What I'll probably do is turn the basement heat up when we're heading into a freeze. Since it's been a while I expect Atlanta to be covered in snow in January. There will be lots of traffic accidents and things like bread milk and gasoline will be sold out (liquor is never a problem though). I'm also planning to get a propane heater since the tank top model is simple and cheap. I'm not going to fark with a wood stove this season. I still can't do much with my arms so there's no way I'm assembling and piping a cast iron stove.
