|
This
is the single, most important preventative maintenance item you can provide your system!!! Your system is designed to
handle a limited amount of water. The tank is designed to retain flow for 30
hours for settlement and bacterial breakdown. A larger volume of water
discharged into the system will prevent complete treatment of solids and also
will stir up the contents, causing suspended particles to flow out and clog the
absorption field.
- Toilets:
A septic system is designed to handle several hundred gallons of water per
day. But this assumes it is truly wastewater and not wasted clean water. A
malfunctioning toilet is often difficult to detect – audibly or visually – and
can result in over 1,000 unused gallons per day, saturating your field. Check
your toilets with food coloring tablets or liquid in the toilet tank (behind
the seat). If the color bleeds into the toilet bowl in 5 minutes, you have a
bad flapper valve or a maladjusted shut-off float. Houses older than 12 years
are particularly susceptible to this problem. The food dye costs about $2.00,
or ask us and we will furnish you dye tablets at no charge; the repair flapper
valve costs about $4.00. You can do it yourself. This is cheap insurance to
avoid a $3,000 new field! After a flush, the tank refilling should stop about
½” below the overflow tube.
- Laundry:
Spread your weekly clothes washing over the entire week rather than 6 loads on
Saturday. When buying a new clothes washer, consider a front loading or low
water use machine, with a suds-saver device. The second load requires only a
fraction of the soap and reuses the wash water.
- Low-Flow Fixtures:
Install low-flow fixtures, especially shower heads and toilets. Most county
building departments now require this in new home construction. Retrofitting
these items in your home will greatly reduce water consumption and extend the
life of your absorption bed.
- Water Softeners:
The salt brine back flush of your water softener does not harm the septic
system, unless the softener is malfunctioning and becomes stuck in the back
flush cycle.
- Basement Sumps:
These collect ground water from around your foundation walls or footers and
drain into a sump in the basement floor. A pump sends the water out through
2’ piping. This discharge is supposed to go outside to the ground surface or
into a drywell, and not into the septic system. Check to be sure it is not
plumbed into the main house sewer line and thus into your septic system.
- Outside the
House: Check to
be sure no surface water or run-off is reaching your septic tank or
leach field. Divert any surface run-off water from roofs, drainpipes,
driveways, patios and foundation drains away from the septic tank and
absorption field. One good June downpour, with lots of surface water from the
surrounding area, can immediately saturate an absorption bed requiring
expensive repairs.
|