r/septictanks

So this is embarrassing and I’m scared to ask anyone in the legal field…

My grandfather has dementia so we are now in the process of moving things from his name into my grandmothers or my dads. In this process we have reviewed some of our cottage and the land. About 30-40 years ago, my aunt remembers a septic system being delivered and installed at our family cottage. However we recently learned that the septic actually broke when being put in, and so the sewage has been draining down the hill into a big pit. He has also thrown old pieces of garbage in there as well (like an old tub, a lawnmower) just to name what is visible from the top of the pit.

To say I’m horrified is an understatement. My family didn’t realize this was going on and now we aren’t sure what to do. If this goes into someone’s name; we are scared of being charged for environmental damage. We want to put in a proper septic setup as well, but are terrified to have any professional come to the property. Has anyone gone through something like this before?

I’ve been trying to locate a septic tank on my lot that’s dated back 50-70 years and I’ve been absolutely breaking my back with a shovel and pick axe.

A couple companies I got quotes from are crazy expensive (they don’t want to come out for a small job when their usual customers are corporations and utility companies)

I could rent one from EXI, but I’m no engineer or anything to be able to know what to do, I’m just a guy with a shovel.

This was initially posted on my local sub reddit. I guess, apart from getting a mini ex out and digging up the lot, are there any other ways to find this thing installed circa 1958?

Edit:
The previous house was demolished, and there’s no visible clean out nor lid or anything. There is a lush patch of grass but I haven’t yet been able to dig deep enough to find it and I think I might just be digging into the drain field

My system needs unblocking and emptying once a year at least. It gets totally backed up.
The last point of inspection before the tank, gets completely solid and it backs up the system from there. The fella who empties it and clears it all by blasting water said I’ve no tee piece on the entry inside the tank?

Could this be the issue?
I feel like it’s something else as the tank itself never overflows but the opening point before it does. I’m thinking of just getting a new system .

I want to expand capacity of the current tank.

My current tank is 1000 gallons and neeed to expand to 3000 gallon

So I start out on the plumber page a few weeks ago and I thought the issue was fixed but now I’m thinking it may be something to do with the septic tank. We started having issues with one sink in our bathroom, we have a double vanity and the sink we don’t use and haven’t ever used started gurgling when we would flush the toilet and the toilet water would rise ( it’s the sink on the right side, farthest away from the toilet and closest to the septic tank which is I would say maybe 12 feet outside from the sink possibly a little further ). The plumbers recommended changing the studor vent and I thought it was fixed bc everything was flowing as normal, no gurgling and no water rising in the toilet. I forgot to run water in that sink so there wasn’t any water in the p trap and I started smelling something and then remembered. After I ran water in that sink the same thing started happening again 🤦🏻‍♀️ everything flows fine if we take the studor vent off. We have snaked the pipes more times than I can count besides the toilet bc I realllly didn’t want to pull the toilet but I did yesterday and I also ran the water hose in the bathroom window and ran water in every pipe a few weeks ago and have even poured gallons in the toilet and nothing backs up. Me and my fiancé both took turns snaking it from inside the house and the cleanout pipe outside and from the toilet drain you can see the snake go down the cleanout pipe to the septic tank pipe, it’s just a 25 ft manual snake with a drill attachment thingy. We also snaked to the septic tank and found nothing at all. We had the tank pumped a little over two years ago but there is standing water in the cleanout pipe. The water is several inches below where our bathroom drains into that pipe and we haven’t had any back ups. Some things I’ve read say it’s okay for water to stand in that pipe as long as it flows and then I’ve read that water should never be in that pipe, I don’t know how it flows down the cleanout pipe with the studor vent on bc taking the cap off to watch the water draining would pretty much be the same thing as taking the studor off right?? That pipe is only to our bathroom, our bathroom was added 12ish years ago and they just ran the pipe from our bathroom straight to the tank. When we had it pumped, the man wanted to know what all came out of that pipe and it’s strictly our bathroom. I think that is everything! Any advice or ideas on what it could be that we could possibly fix or try before we call our septic guy back out??

We brought a three season cottage in 2016. It was built in the late 1950s. In the late 1980s a large septic tank was installed. When we brought the owners told us it had never been pumped out. We had it inspected and were told it was a very large tank that was in good shape.

We’ve had no problems. There are rarely more than 4 or 5 of us here. We try not to put any food waste down the drain - we rise dishes in a bucket that we dump outside. So the tank gets some waste water and the single toilet.

I’ve read that a septic should be pumped every 5-10 years for a cottage people use seasonally. So, we’re at the end of that time. On the other hand it was never pumped for 25 years and was in good shape when they pumped it and it didn’t really need it.

Is it crazy we haven’t had it pumped out? Should we be doing it immediately?

Hello! Im a FTHB. I moved in with my two younger boys. Started smelling sewage upstairs. I tracked it to the upstairs bathroom tub.

I looked up that it could be from a dry p trap because bathroom has not been in use.

I’ve tried running water and flushing toilet. Smell gets worse.

I’ve tried putting baking soda and vinegar down.

Nothing is working.

When I flush the toilet I hear a gurgling sound coming from bathtub drain.

It goes from smelling alright to completely awful at random times. Even without using the bathroom.

Downstairs bathroom , sink and dishwasher all smell great. Only smell is coming from upstairs bathroom.

Please if anyone can help me with any ideas of what it could be. I’m extremely desperate.

Thank you!!

I bought my house a couple years ago and its the first one ive lived in that has a septic tank. Ive seen online that you should have your septic tank inspected every 2-3 years and clean it out every 3-5. The only company that services septic tanks around me charges $200 for an inspection and $300 for a clean out.

Are inspections really needed that often? Ive never had any issues with it and i had it inspected when i bought the house. It's a relatively new tank too, the report i got when i bought the house says it was installed in 2020. To me it just doesnt seem to make sense to do an inspection when a clean out is only $100 more.

Should i be paying for inspections every other year? Or is just a clean out every 3 ok?

Hi. We're working towards a self build in England. It's a class q conversion (or at least, that's the planned route), it's an old farm.

The farm has some kind of sewage/septic tank/poo tank. My query is:

* How can I find out what the size/scale/capacity it is, without having to dig it up? i.e. can someone stick a camera down and tell me what's going on?

* Can I reuse this for the sewage for the build - if so, what are the capacity requirements/thresholds etc? If any can be defined.

* Is there a specific body that deals with this sort of thing in the UK that I can reach out to?

Thank you!

So we bought our house in October last year. I recently noticed that there is a wet spot where the leech field is possibly draining. I’m sure that it means the field is failing. Is there automatically a warranty of some sort that would help cover us? Or are we just SOL?

If the leech field is bad, does that mean the whole septic system needs replaced? Or just the drainage?

There is a 4” PVC pipe buried 11”-20” below grade. It extends from septic tank to distribution box. Can a 6” deep concrete pad (12’x17’ minimum) be installed to hold a 14,000 lb pool on top of it? Looks like 118,5 lbs/ft^2 for pressure, not including concrete pad. I’ve found info to not build on top of the septic tank or drain field but not about this piping.