Septic Tank

It will have been 3 years since Zoe and I bought this house the day before Halloween this year. We attempted to get the septic tank pumped last spring, and I called Middlesex Sewer to come and do it. They offered to dig it up for an extra $25.00, to which I said no thanks, it's not like it's a big deal to dig up. Or so I thought...

I pull out the plans to the septic system and it showed that the cover was 42 inches below grade! That's three and a half feet. I called them back right away and said $25.00 seemed like a good price. So, they showed up (Zoe was home, I was not) preparing to dig it up for us. First, they couldn't find it easily (being so far down I guess), so they measured and located it with the drawing. Then they noticed they had to dig 3.5 feet and said no way, they didn't have the right equipment to do so. They recommended we talk to someone who turns out to have been the person who did the Title V when we bought it. We wondered what the comment "suggest installing risers" meant on it.

So we call this other guy and get a price on digging up the tank and installing a riser. Only $600.00 (plus the $160.00 to get it pumped). Now, risers sound great and all, but we are supposed to be on town sewer next year, so spending $760.00 sounds a bit steep. But then, of course, the $15,000 - $20,000 it costs to get a new septic system doesn't sound fun either. We never ended up getting back to him and left it to this year. Besides, it's only the two of us, so we should probably be ok without pumping a bit longer. We also have sandy soil which drains well, so we decided to risk it...

I decided last week to start digging. I talked to a guy at work who dug up his by hand at a depth of 2-3 feet. He pointed out that if it's all sand, that's pretty easy to dig up. I thought it was, and that there were very few rocks (how wrong I was - it was packed with rocks), and so decided to go for it. Took some measurements and started. At exactly 42 inches down, I hit concrete AND I felt the edge of a lid. It was almost 7PM and the man-eating mosquitoes where out, so I snapped a couple of quick pics and ran for cover. These two photos are of my first exploratory excavation. It is much deeper than it looks...

Sadly, I neglected to take any further pictures. I planned on snapping a few while the guys were here pumping, but did not. In any case, I had a lot more work to do. I exposed the cover I found, but it was a rectangle, around 4 inches by 8 inches. Didn't seem to be what I thought the central cover looked like, and I couldn't budge it. While clearing it better, I found the end of the tank next to it and discover that I had uncovered the furthest cover - over the output baffle. Ick! The septic tank is eight feet long, so I had to dig the other way about four feet to uncover it all. I did so, and made a sizeable trench and managed to find a covered manhole in the center.

On Monday, they guys showed up. They complimented me on the digging and clearing of the cover (seriously, I'm not kidding here). They popped off the cover and I got my first look into our septic tank. And, believe it or not, it didn't really smell? I mean, it is a septic tank and since our shit smells like roses I expected to smell an entire florist shop. But it really didn't smell much at all - go figure. They broke up the solid with a shovel and vacuumed it all out and we were good to go. They mentioned I should get a riser and I told them the whole story at which point they offered to do it for $150.00. Seems most of the cost was for the digging, and these guys would put a plastic tube in to extend the accessway. The other guy was going to do cement. They said they'd do it later in the day and, sure enough, when I got home the hole was filled in with lots of excess dirt on the side. This is one reason I didn't get to take more pictures (nor inspect their work). I may dig down the somewhat closer four inches and inspect the top just for the heck of it. Or not. Who knows, maybe they just took the money and ran and figured it'd be 2 or 3 years before I noticed...