any septic tank experts?

[turbodog]

I've got a septic tank, actually an aerobic treatment unit, that's giving me some problems. It's got 2-3 tanks in it. The final tank, which gets pumped out and sprayed across the back yard, is the problem.

The tank company, which is useless, uses a deep well pump with a float switch to clear this chamber. The deep well pump is needed for the high pressure it can generate, as opposed to a sewage/sump pump.

The chamber is about 6' deep. The pump is on the bottom of the tank, suspended by a pvc pipe. The pump feeds from the bottom and outputs through the pvc, straight out the top.

The pump's inlet screen is clogging and the reduced flow (and longer running times) is burning up the impeller in the pump. It's sucking in various stuff that has made it through the other tanks.

The float is set for about a 2' activation. It turns on when water gets about 2' high and stops when it's almost empty. So there's 4' of tank not used.

I want to cut the pvc pipe and raise the pump up off the bottom of the tank. My hope is that the solid particles will drop to the bottom and avoid being sucked into the pump.

Any experience on this? In theory I see no problem. I think raising the pump by a foot will make a good difference.


???

 

[savumaki]

It sounds like you need to pump out the first (and second if necessary) tank to remove the sediment that the bugs don't eat.

As a stop gap there should be no problem with raising the intake on the third tank.

I have a two chamber tank that requires the front chamber to be pumped out on occasion which is generally 2-5 years depending on how you treat the influx.

good luck

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Sounds perfect to me. I wonder why so much tank was left unused. I would have set the pump up higher to give the extra junk time to settle out. Maybe the septic company wanted to sell you new pumps more frequently.

I've replaced floats and a pump on my septic system. It's similar to yours, but mine drains to a drainage field instead of being sprayed above ground, so no high pressure needed. Other than the mess you're dealing with, it's simple straightforward stuff. I agree w/ Savumaki, at the very least check and see if your other tanks need to be pumped out.

 

[turbodog]

Sounds perfect to me. I wonder why so much tank was left unused. I would have set the pump up higher to give the extra junk time to settle out. Maybe the septic company wanted to sell you new pumps more frequently.

I've replaced floats and a pump on my septic system. It's similar to yours, but mine drains to a drainage field instead of being sprayed above ground, so no high pressure needed. Other than the mess you're dealing with, it's simple straightforward stuff. I agree w/ Savumaki, at the very least check and see if your other tanks need to be pumped out.

The septic tank company turned out to be a pitiful excuse for a company. When my first pump burnt out I spoke with the owner of the company.

Now, when you speak with the owne, you should get some definitive answers. They may not be what you want to hear, but they should be confident. I've never heard so many ummms and i-don't-knows in my life.

Yes, I think they are in the business of fixing their tanks for $ later on. I don't even know if fixing is the right word to use. They had to put 3 high water alarms on before they got one that worked. The service guy admitted their alarms often malfunction. He should not have said this... the septic inspector lives next door to me.

Pumping chamber 1 or 2 is not an option. It's too wet to get a truck in here. I could pump it by myself onto the ground, but chamber 1/2 have no access covers above ground. I'd have to hand dig through about 4' of dirt to reach the tank.

At this point I'm going to trim a foot or so off the pump pipe and see what happens. I already have a reminder in my schedule to pull the pump every 3 months and spray off the filter screen.

Oh, and on top of this, the replacement pump was $600. I later found them for $225 from another company close by.

And, if all this fails (pump dies again soon) I will dig a ditch, bury some sewer pipe, and let the tank3 drain into this and down through the trees.

 

[turbodog]

I should add, I don't feel the need to clean 1/2 out yet. 3 seems to contain construction debris (house is about 2 years old). I am finding pieces of pvc glue, pvc sawdust from the drain pipe itself.

Basically... I am not seeing biological stuff. I'm seeing lightweight, floating plastic looking stuff. Also looks like tank may have gotten a good backhoe full of grass in it when it was being placed.

I know *I* didn't eat anything that I found in there.

:twothumbs

 

[CLBME]

Hi TurboDog,

I don't have specific experience with your type of system but I install other systems for a living as an excavation contractor. The vast majority of our systems go from a tank to leach field or into a "lift station", which pumps to a leach field a distance away or where gravity won't allow it to flow downhill.


My first recommendation would be to stop the solids from getting to the pump. I install an effluent filter made by a company called Zabel http://zabelstore.stores.yahoo.net/12effi.html in my new system installations. It's essentially a plastic honeycomb that traps the solids from the tank that may not settle out. It's installed on the outlet end of the tank obviously and works well. This may be an option for you and can be installed in most tanks if there is an outlet cover large enough.

The raising of the pump may cause the pump to cycle more often (as it's not pumping down the full 2' feet each time and then allowing it to rebuild) thus making it run more frequently leading to faster wear. I don't know why you have the dead space in the tank (it may be excess capacity in the event of pump failure), but if you can I'd also move the float switch up with the pump so you're still pumping 2' of effluent each time. You may already be doing this but wasn't sure.

 

[TedTheLed]

http://www.deanbennett.com/

http://www.flintandwalling.com/ProductByCategory.aspx?CategoryID=31

I'm not sure what you are allowed to spew on top of the ground there,
and the fact that you can't approach tanks 1/2 because the ground is to squishy doesn't sound right..but mayb the codes are different out your way..

anyway above are a couple of links you could probably use; have you considered a macerator pump? They can handle some head, so may provide ample pressure..

my well guy wanted $2000. to replace my well pump, I bought a new motor for the pump from Dean Bennet supply for about $260 and screwed in on the old pump -- works perfectly..

..btw you can save thousands in well pump repairs if you use flexible pipe instead of pvc, so you don't need (to rent) a tall rig to lift the pump straight up and out; you can just pull it out yourself hand over fist, maybe with help if you have a very deep well.

 

[turbodog]

Hi TurboDog,

I don't have specific experience with your type of system but I install other systems for a living as an excavation contractor. The vast majority of our systems go from a tank to leach field or into a "lift station", which pumps to a leach field a distance away or where gravity won't allow it to flow downhill.


My first recommendation would be to stop the solids from getting to the pump. I install an effluent filter made by a company called Zabel http://zabelstore.stores.yahoo.net/12effi.html in my new system installations. It's essentially a plastic honeycomb that traps the solids from the tank that may not settle out. It's installed on the outlet end of the tank obviously and works well. This may be an option for you and can be installed in most tanks if there is an outlet cover large enough.

The raising of the pump may cause the pump to cycle more often (as it's not pumping down the full 2' feet each time and then allowing it to rebuild) thus making it run more frequently leading to faster wear. I don't know why you have the dead space in the tank (it may be excess capacity in the event of pump failure), but if you can I'd also move the float switch up with the pump so you're still pumping 2' of effluent each time. You may already be doing this but wasn't sure.

Float is zip tied to pump and pipe so it will move up when I move the pump.

 

[turbodog]

http://www.deanbennett.com/

http://www.flintandwalling.com/ProductByCategory.aspx?CategoryID=31

I'm not sure what you are allowed to spew on top of the ground there,
and the fact that you can't approach tanks 1/2 because the ground is to squishy doesn't sound right..but mayb the codes are different out your way..

anyway above are a couple of links you could probably use; have you considered a macerator pump? They can handle some head, so may provide ample pressure..

my well guy wanted $2000. to replace my well pump, I bought a new motor for the pump from Dean Bennet supply for about $260 and screwed in on the old pump -- works perfectly..

..btw you can save thousands in well pump repairs if you use flexible pipe instead of pvc, so you don't need (to rent) a tall rig to lift the pump straight up and out; you can just pull it out yourself hand over fist, maybe with help if you have a very deep well.

No tank leaks. Been raining like crazy. Ground is wet, wet, wet. Summertime will find the ground rock-hard.

Septic tank, not deep well...

I can lift pump out by hand. It's only on a 6-7' length of pipe.

Will move pump up this next time I clean the filter on it. Then will see what it looks like next time.

 

[turbodog]

This is a followup to my original problems.

Got tanks 1 & 2 pumped out. Ground was hard enough to get a pumper truck in there. They had to dig through several feet of rock hard dirt. Afterwards, I installed a manhole riser and cover for easy access in the future.

Tanks 1/2 were pretty good. The air bubbler was installed incorrectly (big surprise there) and was only running at 1/4 capacity.

According to the tank pumper and the county health inspector, the white stuff clogging the pump in tank 3 was grease. Stranged grease I have seen. It was white and powdery, sort of like powdered soap for washing clothes.

I moved the tank 3 pump off the bottom and adjusted the float limits. So far it's working fine.

Although *NOW* I'm dealing with stuff that has made it through the pump... it's clogging the spray heads. I swear... this is enough to make a person just dig a lagoon.

And this is after I moved the 3 spray heads from the backyard (where they were saturating the ground) to 400' back where they would be spaced out nicely in the trees.

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Glad the new setup is working well for you. At least the spray heads are ABOVE ground! Do they have a filter screen on them, or does it clog the head itself?

I recently had a coil of excess float wire fall down onto the pump and alarm floats, holding them both down and keeping both the pump and the alarm off. First indication we had that there was a problem was a nasty smell in the back yard, followed by water from the second settling tank escaping and pooling in the back yard. Turned on the pump manually from the control box, let the water get pumped down, and yanked the lid. Saw that the excess wire had fallen(last person in there was the guy that pumped it out), pulled the excess wire up, freeing both floats and kicking on the pump and the alarm at the same time. Turned off the alarm, let the pump empty the tank till it kicked off, turned on all the water in the house to fill the tank back up, watched until the pump kicked on and off again. Zip tied the wire up and out of the way. Haven't had an issue since.

If I was looking for a career, I would have to seriously consider septic repair. You get paid well for the nastiness, but the work really isn't that hard.

 

[turbodog]

Don't know. Have yet to remove/clean the heads. They still popup and spray, but rotation is stuck.

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Are they standard landscaping sprinkler heads? All kinds of options available that don't have moving parts.........

 

[turbodog]

Yeah. They are in a plastic "can" about the size of a coffee can. The sprinkler part's the same size as a common lawn sprinkler (the garden hose type).

Would need to disperse the water though. These puppies spray about a 40' diameter circle.

 

[turbodog]

...

If I was looking for a career, I would have to seriously consider septic repair. You get paid well for the nastiness, but the work really isn't that hard.

Yes...

Also, you could go into the tank mfg business also. It's a concrete box with some piping....

Around here, you've got to be certified by the tank mfg to work on their tank (health dept rule). Problem is... the certification is at the whim of the tank mfg! So if you're like me and have a sucky mfg and mfg support team (their cousins!) you're screwed.

Ergo... I have now completely learned how their tank works and where to obtain service parts.

 

[turbodog]

This is for anyone that may have been following this thread. I want to get this info out there to help the next guy that runs into these type problems.

After I raised the pump up off the floor of chamber #3, had a pumper truck clean chambers 1&2, and quit putting grease down the drain, I have had zero problems with the whole thing.

Chamber 1 is supposed to have a 'bubbler' in it. Pump truck company said to remove the bubbler from this chamber. With no aerobic action to stir it up, it will act like a prefilter of sorts. Chamber 2 has the bubbler and the water in there looks pretty good. You can see through it a little. It's in a constant state of turmoil, but I don't see any solids churning up. It's just grey/brown water.

Chamber 3 looks nice. Tank is clean, clean, clean. Nothing is floating in there. I pull the pump up every 3 months and it's practically spotless. Inlet filter is clean, does not even have hair in it.

The pump is about 2' off the bottom with a 2' drop on the float. This leaves about 4' from high water to the top of the tank. I have not measured it, but the tank is aroun 8' deep, not 6. Sprinkler heads are popping up good and rotating like they are supposed to. Hopefully, I'm over my septic troubles.

Found several websites that sell air pumps and air pump parts. Those suckers are around $600, but a rebuild kit for the pump is only about $100.

Now if I can just kill the fire ants that are nesting under the air pump. Have tried 2 types of poison and a gallon of gasoline. They're hanging tough...

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Good to hear.

Being in the PNW, I have zero experience with fire ants, but dang, I would have thought gasoline would get rid of them!

My first thought would be to find a poison they will take back to the nest and feed to everyone. Second thought would be a large quantity of something unpleasant pumped down the hole to saturate the entire nest, maybe exhaust from a small engine like gassing gophers or similar. Third thought would be dig up the nest and eradicate it directly.

Good luck.

 

[Dr Jekell]

You could try Trinitrotoluene for the ants :devil:

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

You could try Trinitrotoluene for the ants :devil:

I agree. The universal problem solver. Good for un-sticking stuck bolts, quieting squeaky door hinges, removing fences, rocks and other barriers in inconvenient places, relocating houses, and general automotive repair. Will also cure baldness and ED.

 

[turbodog]

You could try Trinitrotoluene for the ants :devil:

Or just throw a match into the tank.