The Septic System Owner's Manual - Softcover

Kahn, Lloyd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0936070404 ISBN 13: 9780936070407

Publisher: Shelter Publications, 2007

Synopsis

Learn all about household septic systems—including how to maintain and repair them—whether you’re planning to build or already own a home.

More than 28 million households have septic systems, yet few homeowners know how they operate or how to maintain them. The Septic System Owner’s Manual describes the conventional gravity-fed septic system, how it works, how it should be treated (what should and should not go down the drain), how it should be maintained, and what to do if things go wrong. Written by Lloyd Kahn, with illustrations by Peter Aschwanden, this is your straightforward, easy-to-understand guide to small-scale residential wastewater disposal.

The Septic System Owner’s Manual is perfect for the average homeowner, based on conventional systems, providing practical advice on how to keep these systems up (or should we say down?) and running. You’ll also appreciate information on the evolution in composting toilet systems, designs for simple graywater systems, and some typical alternatives to the standard, gravity-fed septic system. There’s a chapter with advice to any community that’s faced with town-wide septic upgrades and a chapter on the history of waterborne waste disposal.

Homeowners will especially find this book useful in terms of the following:

• Working systems: By understanding septic system principles, you will know how to maximize its useful life.
• Partially failing systems: You may be able to nurse along an ailing system or even bring it back to life.
• Failing systems: You are given a discovery process to search for the problem.
• Alternative systems: You will understand how they work and what purposes they serve.

Get this comprehensive book, and get to know the ins and outs of your septic system. It could save you countless repair bills and countless headaches!

About this title

About the Author

Lloyd Kahn started building more than 50 years ago and has lived in a self-built home ever since. If he’d been able to buy a wonderful, old, good-feeling house, he might have never started building. But it was always cheaper to build than to buy, and by building himself, he could design what he wanted and use materials that he wanted to live with.

Lloyd set off to learn the art of building in 1960. He liked the whole process immensely. Ideally he’d have worked with a master carpenter long enough to learn the basics, but there was never time. He learned from friends and books and by blundering his way into a process that required a certain amount of competence. His perspective was that of a novice, a homeowner, rather than a pro. As he learned, he felt that he could tell others how to build—or at least get them started on the path to creating their own homes.

Through the years, he’s personally gone from post and beam to geodesic domes to stud-frame construction. It’s been a constant learning process, and this has led him into investigating many methods of construction. For five years in the late ’60s to early ’70s, he built geodesic domes. He got into book publishing by producing Domebook One in 1970 and Domebook 2 in 1971.

He gave up on domes (as homes) and published his company’s namesake Shelter in 1973. Since then, Shelter Publications has produced books on a variety of subjects and returned to its roots with Home Work in 2004, The Barefoot Architect and Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2008, Tiny Homes in 2012, and more.

Building is Lloyd’s favorite subject. Even in this day and age, building a house with one’s own hands can save a ton of money and—if you follow it through—you can get what you want in a home.

Peter Aschwanden (1942–2005) was an artist and illustrator, based in New Mexico. He is perhaps best known as the illustrator (under the name Junipero Scopulorum) of the 1969 book How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, written by John Muir. Aschwanden died of cancer in 2005, at the age of 63.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Red Alert! . . . System Failure

Your system has failed—that’s presumably why you’re reading this chapter. Water has backed up into the shower, the toilets won’t flush, and/or drains won’t drain. This means wastewater has backed up from the tank through the main drain into the house. It’s going the wrong way! Or—untreated effluent is surfacing on the ground. In this chapter we’ll talk about different types of failures, their causes, and what to do when your system fails.

Probable Causes of Failure

One or more of the following may have happened:

1. The sewage pipe between the house and the tank is blocked or broken.
2. Either the inlet or outlet tee is blocked or broken.
3. The line between the tank and drainfield is blocked or broken.
4. If the system has a pump, there may have been an electrical or mechanical failure.
5. The tank itself is blocked with solids or has collapsed (an old redwood tank perhaps).
6. The drainfield is flooded due to heavy rains or flooding.
7. The drainfield is (partially or completely) clogged with solids or roots.

Locating the Problem

When the septic system is failing, there is a procedure for locating the cause, called the discovery process, in which you search for the problem in the following order:

System Blockage

You start by searching for a blockage somewhere in the system because this is the easiest cause to locate and the easiest (and cheapest) problem to solve.

1. If only one fixture does not drain, check for blockage between the fixture and the main drain pipe. Use clean-outs for checking.
2. If all fixtures on one branch of the drain pipe do not drain, check for blockage in that branch. Also, check the tank inlet for blockage.
3. Open the tank. If it is flooded, the problem may be at the outlet or beyond. Check the outlet for blockage. If it is not flooded, you can check the various household fixtures by running a hose down them to see if the water makes it to the tank.
4. If sewage is not arriving at the tank, then check for a pipe line blockage between the house and the tank.
5. If both the outlet and the inlet tees are good but sewage is still backing up in the tank and house plumbing, the problem may be in the tightline (pipe between tank and drainfield) or the drainfield itself.
6. To check the tightline, you’ll have to dig it up where it enters the drainfield. Try a plumber’s snake to check for a blockage between the tank and drainfield. Or, the tightline may be broken or sheared off. (See at right.)
7. If the tightline is clear and intact, and all of the above steps have not produced the culprit, the drainfield is probably the problem. (See next page.)

Clearing Pipe Blockage

If the plumbing suddenly backs up under normal use, especially in dry weather, blockage is the prime suspect. This is generally the easiest problem to correct, particularly if it’s between the house and tank.

Most pipe blockages can be located using a plumber’s snake. (All tool rental stores have snakes.) Or, an old garden hose may work if there are not too many bends in the pipe. Also, there is a simple (and brilliant!) rubber device called the Drain King, which fits on the end of a garden hose. The hose is then run down the clogged drain pipe, and when the water is turned on, the bulbous rubber section expands, locks in the pipe, and emits strong pulsating bursts of water. These are available for 1- to 10-inch drains. (See Appendix, p. 174 for more information on the Drain King.)

Root Blockage

If you find that roots between house and tank are the problem, a Roto-Rooter can clear the line, but the roots will return if the entry points (leaks) are not found and sealed.

Tightline Breakage

A common problem is that the tightline (pipe between tank and drainfield) has broken. This often happens when the tank, which is very heavy when filled, has settled in the ground some time after installation, and the pipe has not flexed. (In some areas, new systems now must include a flexible coupling at the septic tank wall.) As with pipe blockage, snaking the line usually helps you find this problem, so the pipe can be either repaired or replaced. Sometimes it is easier and cheaper to replace the tightline, especially if roots are the problem, than to try to clear it.

Power Outage/Flooding

If you have an alternative system that uses electricity to pump the effluent to the drainfield and there is a power outage, the pump chamber should be checked immediately. If it is low, you’re OK, but monitor your water usage. If it is nearly full, water usage must be severely curtailed or the result will be effluent from the pump chamber backflowing into your house since there’s no electricity to pump the effluent to the drainfield—a distinct disadvantage to high-tech systems! You’ll have to wait until the electricity comes back on, or keep a small standby generator on hand for such emergencies.

If you live in an area with high groundwater and heavy rains, your tank and your pump chamber might be filling with rainwater runoff. It is wise to have good risers around the inspection holes of the septic tank since concrete lids generally leak. These risers are sold in many builders’ supply outlets. (See p. 50.)

Edition details

• Publisher: Shelter Publications
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0936070404
• ISBN 13: 9780936070407
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Aschwanden Peter
• Number of pages: 192