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Post by Sasquatch on Jan 7, 2019 21:20:06 GMT -5
I have a drainage issue that is getting more vexing by the day.
I have a septic system, and whenever it rains, we have trouble. "Burbling" noises issue from the drains. If we run too much water, say a shower and a load of clothes, water backs up out of the floor drain in the attached garage.
Pertinent facts:
.Ordinary three bed, two bath house built in 1970, if that helps
.septic field is in a low spot in the yard and we always had minor slow draining during rain, but it is much worse now. Usage has not really changed, and we had issues before this rainy year
.We thought perhaps it was just the tank needing pumped, so we did that. No change.
.I think the line draining the sink and the washer may be partially blocked. the reason I say this is that I have seen garbage disposal debris that came out of the garage floor drain. One day after grinding up a small amount of spaghetti in the sink I noticed spaghetti particles around the backed up garage floor drain after the washer ran. If the sink water was making it to the septic tank, the noodles shouldn't have came out hours later?
.Not sure how the pipes are arranged. I'm not physically capable of crawling around and tracing them, unfortunately. I have been told that garage drains are not usually hooked in to the others but I don't know how accurate that is.
.Nearly constant "glug glug" noises whenever we flush a dumper or run the washer, etc.
If any water has been ran recently the washer will back up out of the garage drain.
Strong septic odor associated with the washer. It stinks the most when it fills, not when draining.
.Toilets flush fine, other than causing the burbling drain noises.
.The only thing that seems to trigger the garage flooding is the washer.
.What I think is mud sometimes comes up with the garage drain water. I thought it was crap at first, but it doesn't seem to stink enough.
Any clue how to help this problem? I need to get the plumber out here but I thought maybe things might go faster if I knew what to tell him. It's a long shot but the forum "hive mind" has helped me before.
Thanks!
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Post by beermaker on Jan 7, 2019 21:33:16 GMT -5
NEVER put any sort of pasta down the drain. It does not flow well, will hang up easily, and eventually turns to a paste-like gunk in the pipes.
I'm not a septic authority, but it appears that your lateral field is shallow and fills with ground water. It was likely installed before curtain drains were common.
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Post by nfalls116 on Jan 7, 2019 22:08:29 GMT -5
Get a new septic installed. Make the garage drain go into the old septic and everything else to new septic. Better yet get rid of garage drain all together
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Post by welder on Jan 7, 2019 22:16:02 GMT -5
Get someone who knows what they are doing to check it out and see what they say. You can waste a lot of money guessing on things like this. The first thing I would do is get rid of the garbage disposal,they are known to cause problems. While a new septic system may be the best choice,it is also the most expensive. Good luck.
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Post by Sasquatch on Jan 7, 2019 22:51:37 GMT -5
Get a new septic installed. Make the garage drain go into the old septic and everything else to new septic. Better yet get rid of garage drain all together I thought about just sealing that drain off, but feared that the water would go elsewhere. Do they let you keep an old septic? I remember seeing something about having to remove the tank or fill them with sand if you did something else, though that may have been the rules for some other place. Running the washer somewhere else would sure help. |
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Post by Sasquatch on Jan 7, 2019 22:55:59 GMT -5
NEVER put any sort of pasta down the drain. It does not flow well, will hang up easily, and eventually turns to a paste-like gunk in the pipes. I'm not a septic authority, but it appears that your lateral field is shallow and fills with ground water. It was likely installed before curtain drains were common. Good to know, though I never put much of anything substantial down it. Usually crumbs or whatever is at the bottom of the dishwater. Kids don't leave much! Thanks for the warning. My poor old beagle was the garbage disposal for 14 years. I still get sad when we have a leftover chicken nugget or a piece of stale bread.  |
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Post by jman46151 on Jan 7, 2019 23:22:52 GMT -5
I think beermaker may be onto something. Do you have a clean out outside of the house? I imagine it would be pretty easy to see how the flow is coming out of the house.
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Post by bartiks on Jan 8, 2019 0:09:55 GMT -5
I'm no authority on septic system's, however my friend is a licensed septic installer/plumber and he told me that the old septic needed to be crushed and filled in with sand. Also a new septic has to be placed in "virgin soil". The one thing that I had to have for my new septic system I had put in around 3 years ago was it had to have a perimeter drain. Basically it was a ring around the entire field that was a tile filled with pea gravel.
Also a cheaper way to maybe help narrow down what your issue is inside the house/garage is go out and buy around 4 bottles of something called "Thrift". It comes in a white bottle with red lettering on it. The stuff is wicked. I use it all the time at my house with my wife's hair getting down the drain. Mac and cheese what have you, she doesn't believe in scraping off the plates before the dishwasher "eats" the left overs.
A word of caution on the Thrift, read the directions very, very carefully. It basically activates these little pellets and that in turn produces an acid that eats anything in the pipes. Hope all that helps and keep us posted.
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Post by nfalls116 on Jan 8, 2019 5:37:47 GMT -5
Get a new septic installed. Make the garage drain go into the old septic and everything else to new septic. Better yet get rid of garage drain all together I thought about just sealing that drain off, but feared that the water would go elsewhere. Do they let you keep an old septic? I remember seeing something about having to remove the tank or fill them with sand if you did something else, though that may have been the rules for some other place. Running the washer somewhere else would sure help. Idk? That is between you and your town/county. |
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Post by featherduster on Jan 8, 2019 6:06:07 GMT -5
If your county is like mine you will need to have your potential septic field "perk" tested then it will need to also be so many feet away from your well and property lines.
You cannot install a new septic field over an existing field however if your old field is not that bad you can install a shut off valve between fields allowing you to use the new one for a year or two then switch to the other allowing the first field to dry.
Installers are now putting in a secondary small gray water catch tanks off of your primary solid holding tank and in this catch water tank they are installing a filter screen to catch small pieces of waste like CORN and keep them from entering your drain field.This filter can be removed and cleaned once or twice a year.
With today's modern ideas for installing septic systems a new system could last you a life time.
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Post by span870 on Jan 8, 2019 6:34:03 GMT -5
It sounds like your system is very similar to ours. Grey water drains one place and septic to the septic system. We had a very similar incident. What we found was where the grey water drained to the field , it was blocked up at the exit by growth and grease. We boiled an insane amount of water and kept dumping it down the garage drain and cleaned up the area where the water exited the pipe. Took care of the problem. Now at least once a month we dump several buckets of very hot water down the garage drain to clear it out and keep the grease build up to a minimum.
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Post by psearcher on Jan 8, 2019 7:35:43 GMT -5
Been there, sounds like septic is an old original one? That's how mine was. Your water table is high right now. Back in the old days they used to put the fingers of system really deep, today the max is like 20 some inches depending on glacial till of soil on property.
Do you have a perimeter drain around property to get rid of ground water? If you know where your tank is you can find distribution box and then the fingers with probe metal rod of sorts. I used post hole digger to dig to finger. I hit water way before I hit gravel on finger, be careful old fingers where tile. If water is above fingers your effluent has no where to go.
I limped along by digging a hole deep as top of fingers some where away but sort of close to fingers and placed 5 gallon bucket with holes in it and used a pump to move ground water far away. Then saved up and got new system in spring
I got to re use my holding tank and did not need an extra dosing tank since had enough drop to new field, just added the strainer to tank exit that needs hosed off every 6 months. In my county I could have put new one between old fingers if I had no where else to install but a lot had to be done to prep ground luckily I had room |
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Post by freedomhunter on Jan 8, 2019 8:40:10 GMT -5
Get somebody local that knows what they are doing to inspect. Hopefully you can save the system, it sounds like it is just drainage issues. Area drains shouldn't go to your system, all interior grey should go to the tank. The health department in your county will control what you have to do if you need to get them involved. New systems are not cheap.
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Post by htownhunter on Jan 8, 2019 9:19:24 GMT -5
I had a similar problem with my septic. It turned out to be the line from the house to the tank. It was clogged with roots and other stuff. With the warm weather lately Id guess the roots are going into the line.
I have orange clay tile for a septic line. I don't know what yours is.
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Post by throbak on Jan 8, 2019 10:24:16 GMT -5
Call Vickie at 265 -2070 SWCD office we’ve had workshops I think ther is another coming up
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Post by omegahunter on Jan 8, 2019 14:15:54 GMT -5
I had a similar problem with my septic. It turned out to be the line from the house to the tank. It was clogged with roots and other stuff. With the warm weather lately Id guess the roots are going into the line. I have orange clay tile for a septic line. I don't know what yours is. A friend at work had a similar issue this fall, but it was all of the fingers blocked that was not allowing the tank to drain and everything was backing up. |
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Post by scrub-buster on Jan 8, 2019 14:45:05 GMT -5
I would start by getting a snake or the liquid as mentioned above and make sure your pipes are flowing to the septic tank freely. I always try to start with the simple fix and work my way up from there. No need to start planning a new septic system when it could be something as simple as a clogged pipe between the house and tank. Do you dump grease or oil down your sink? That is really bad for your pipes if you do. They will build up and restrict the flow.
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Post by psearcher on Jan 8, 2019 15:18:04 GMT -5
find the lid to your tank, Ill bet its full to top, if not blockage is back towards house
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Post by nfalls116 on Jan 8, 2019 17:09:08 GMT -5
find the lid to your tank, Ill bet its full to top, if not blockage is back towards house Ok this is definitely one of the best initial steps suggested |
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Post by jbird on Jan 8, 2019 18:10:10 GMT -5
Keep in mind that water when backed up is going to show up at the lowest point possible. I had a crazy deal where I had a "water leak" in my furnace! Made a huge mess as it led to it raining in my basement! It made no sense to me until I sat down and thought about it. Turns out the condensate trap for the furnace was where the water was coming from as I had a partial blockage and the water would show up when the washer ran...
Checking for full the tank is will give you some indication of where the problem may be. If it's full...it's not draining properly for some reason more than likely. If it's fine...then your issue is between the tank and somewhere in the house. That narrows it down at least some.
If you start digging into your pipes in the house - when you replace - add unions and clean-out ports to save you some trouble next time.
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