Manufacturer defect?

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

X2. I have a septic tank here at home. Everything is plumbed to it. Sinks, showers, toilets, sump pump.

Originally Posted by BamaBob

Actually, your sinks, showers, washer and other non-sewage waste lines should be hooked to the leach field not the septic tank

Never heard of that. Mine looks just like this pic; one line from the house to the septic tank and one from the septic tank to the leach fields distribution box.

How a Septic Tank Works | The Family Handyman

[Mr Havercamp]

Originally Posted by pearly44

Wow. How did we devolve to a septic field discussion. Since you asked....If you have a septic tank you have a leach field with at least one leach line. The waste line empties from your dwelling into your septic tank which is located by code, no more than 10 feet perpendicular to your dwelling. The line into the septic is generally about 2/3 up the tank. Leading out of the tank very near the top, is a line to a distribution node which leads to a variety of places depending on your situation - pump station, more distribution nodes, one or more leach lines. Why is the design this way? Simple. The solids stay in the septic tank. When the tank fills with liquid, the liquid leaves the tank as above. A properly designed and sized septic system will never emit solids into the leach field. If it does, its time to empty the tank. If you don't empty the tank when it fills with solids, you potentially ruin the leach field since it relies on the free flow of liquids to function properly. Once the leach lines fill with solids, you are generally looking at a new septic system. If you had a septic tank with no leach field you would be in big trouble since a septic tank for a nominally sized family of 4 - 1000 gal, will generally fill with liquid in a week. With no leach field, you would be emptying the tank every week. Essentially, a very large porta-potti.

Its all relative to when a system was installed and what the codes, if any, were at the time. Our house was built in 1920 and we bought it in 1999. The entire village was built for workers on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie RR who had a large yard close by. When we bought the house it had a septic system but around 2007 we got a sewer system, mandated by the DEP based on a lot of things. The septic system had no leech field. I once asked a long time resident of the neighborhood where all the septic tank outlets went with no leech beds and he smiled and said, over there. It turns out all of them went into terracotta pipes under the street that eventually found their way to and dumped into an abandoned coal mine. I watched them dig through all those terracotta pipes while installing the new sewer. The people who for whatever reason drug out the mandated connection process and fees to tap into the sewer soon found out what happens when the septic tank had nowhere to drain, and could not pay the tap fees and do the connections fast enough then. All my roof drains also tied into that terracotta system to the mine and that left me with a mess and a ton of work.

[youroo]

Originally Posted by pearly44

Wife has a nasty habit of washing in the kitchen sink with too much water. ie. she leaves the water run and run and run. I can deal with that. What I can't, and won't deal with is sewage backing up into the kitchen sink from the black tank. This is just plain wrong and needs to be addressed by FR.

Pearly, we have a front kitchen that has its own dedicated "Gray Tank " like most tanks they recommend fluid level reach 2/3 before dumping, boy oh boy is that a "Stinking Mess " way more than most Black Tank odor ! Lots of people think the Gray Water is fine to discharge on top of the ground anywhere,let me dump ours and they will Quickly change their mind! Youroo! !

[pearly44]

Once upon a time we had a Jayco fiver that had two grey tanks. Actually worked very well for us. Grey tanks in alot of cases do smell worse than black tanks. In our Jayco, the kitchen grey always was the worst of the bunch. You never know what might be growing in there....

[pearly44]

Originally Posted by Mr Havercamp

Its all relative to when a system was installed and what the codes, if any, were at the time. Our house was built in 1920 and we bought it in 1999. The entire village was built for workers on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie RR who had a large yard close by. When we bought the house it had a septic system but around 2007 we got a sewer system, mandated by the DEP based on a lot of things. The septic system had no leech field. I once asked a long time resident of the neighborhood where all the septic tank outlets went with no leech beds and he smiled and said, over there. It turns out all of them went into terracotta pipes under the street that eventually found their way to and dumped into an abandoned coal mine. I watched them dig through all those terracotta pipes while installing the new sewer. The people who for whatever reason drug out the mandated connection process and fees to tap into the sewer soon found out what happens when the septic tank had nowhere to drain, and could not pay the tap fees and do the connections fast enough then. All my roof drains also tied into that terracotta system to the mine and that left me with a mess and a ton of work.

Never understood these municipalities migrating to Sewer from septic systems and then giving the residents any choice as to whether to connect. Where I grew up in PA many moons ago, when the sewer mains were put in the street, we had no choice. Everyone paid the 1500.00 to connect to it. If you didn't do it in the aloted time, the county did it and then billed you for it on your tax assessment.

[5picker]

Originally Posted by pearly44

Never understood these municipalities migrating to Sewer from septic systems and then giving the residents any choice as to whether to connect. Where I grew up in PA many moons ago, when the sewer mains were put in the street, we had no choice. Everyone paid the 1500.00 to connect to it. If you didn't do it in the aloted time, the county did it and then billed you for it on your tax assessment.

It's still the same old, same old in PA except it's a $4-5k tap in fee now!
Apologies to the OP for the thread drift.

[pearly44]

Heard from FR today. They acknowledge that even though this drain arrangement was to engineering specs when it was built, it is not an optimal design and not something they want in the field. They will make the repairs and correct it under warranty at no charge to me. My faith in FR is somewhat restored. Thanks for all the help and advice I received. This is a great community of believers.

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by pearly44

Never understood these municipalities migrating to Sewer from septic systems and then giving the residents any choice as to whether to connect. Where I grew up in PA many moons ago, when the sewer mains were put in the street, we had no choice. Everyone paid the 1500.00 to connect to it. If you didn't do it in the aloted time, the county did it and then billed you for it on your tax assessment.

Assume you meant "not giving any choice." The answer is easy: MONEY.

Someone has to pay for that sewer system and it's everyone they can make hook up to it.

[pearly44]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

Assume you meant "not giving any choice." The answer is easy: MONEY.

Someone has to pay for that sewer system and it's everyone they can make hook up to it.

My point was once the sewer main is in the street, you should NOT have a choice. You should be forced to hook up. The simple fact is septic fields are bad for the environment and the more of them there are, the greater likelihood the ground water quality will be affected. In granny states like NY, home owners are always given a choice on whether to hook up, which is stupid, imho, and discourages municipalities from investing in the infrastructure.

[BamaBob]

Originally Posted by rp53

your correct and it makes sense however it E. Tennessee it is against code, we ask them to let us do that got nothing but a big fat NO. but then again how many times does the government do the right thing

(also to Kenny Kustom)

I did not realize this! And RP53 what a difference a few miles make LOL - here in N Alabama it *is* the code to have separate fields (most folks who have septic systems have the gray field in the front yard - does WONDERS for the lawn ;D )

[pearly44]

Originally Posted by BamaBob

(also to Kenny Kustom)

I did not realize this! And RP53 what a difference a few miles make LOL - here in N Alabama it *is* the code to have separate fields (most folks who have septic systems have the gray field in the front yard - does WONDERS for the lawn ;D )

Well, today I learned something new. Turns out grey water use is governed state to state. This website has a great breakdown of what is allowed where. Greywater Codes and Policy -

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by pearly44

My point was once the sewer main is in the street, you should NOT have a choice. You should be forced to hook up. The simple fact is septic fields are bad for the environment and the more of them there are, the greater likelihood the ground water quality will be affected. In granny states like NY, home owners are always given a choice on whether to hook up, which is stupid, imho, and discourages municipalities from investing in the infrastructure.

Got it. Didn't understand, probably because I've NEVER heard of that before. Once sewer is available, in my experience, everyone next to it HAS to use it.

[5picker]

Originally Posted by pearly44

My point was once the sewer main is in the street, you should NOT have a choice. You should be forced to hook up. The simple fact is septic fields are bad for the environment and the more of them there are, the greater likelihood the ground water quality will be affected. In granny states like NY, home owners are always given a choice on whether to hook up, which is stupid, imho, and discourages municipalities from investing in the infrastructure.

You must not live in farm country where tons and tons of raw cow/horse/hog/sheep manure and liquid chicken slit is dumped/sprayed right on top the ground. Fertilizer they call it!

I doubt the waste of humans living in a house with an approved septic does more harm.

[Kenny kustom]

Originally Posted by BamaBob

(also to Kenny Kustom)



I did not realize this! And RP53 what a difference a few miles make LOL - here in N Alabama it *is* the code to have separate fields (most folks who have septic systems have the gray field in the front yard - does WONDERS for the lawn ;D )

We had a cabin, right on the outskirts of a national park.

Everything went in the tank. No field. Had to be pumped every two weeks.

[rp53]

Originally Posted by BamaBob

(also to Kenny Kustom)

I did not realize this! And RP53 what a difference a few miles make LOL - here in N Alabama it *is* the code to have separate fields (most folks who have septic systems have the gray field in the front yard - does WONDERS for the lawn ;D )

we had a cabin in the mountains that we were able to have separate lines before they changed code never had an issue with the septic in the 10+ years we lived there

[dustman_stx]

Originally Posted by pearly44

My point was once the sewer main is in the street, you should NOT have a choice. You should be forced to hook up. The simple fact is septic fields are bad for the environment and the more of them there are, the greater likelihood the ground water quality will be affected. In granny states like NY, home owners are always given a choice on whether to hook up, which is stupid, imho, and discourages municipalities from investing in the infrastructure.

Yes, you should have a choice. I guess in your mind everyone has the ability to fork over $1500 to $5000, according to numbers thrown out here on the forums, to hook up to city sewer. Plus you probably get to pay a sewer bill, or have an increase in your water bill. If the home was that way when you bought it no entity should be able to force you to spend money to make a change against your will. Could you imagine having a 10 year old vehicle that you had to pay to upgrade every time a new emission or safety standard went into effect!?!?! I could possibly be on board for mandatory hookup should the home sell. And might even sign on to an agreement where no replacement or upgraded septic system could be installed- once the current fails you must hook up to city. But to just one day demand that kind of money- not my idea of a free country.

[dustman_stx]

Originally Posted by Kenny kustom

We had a cabin, right on the outskirts of a national park.

Everything went in the tank. No field. Had to be pumped every two weeks.

A moderately deep and long enough lateral line and you'd have been in business.

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by 5picker

You must not live in farm country where tons and tons of raw cow/horse/hog/sheep manure and liquid chicken slit is dumped/sprayed right on top the ground. Fertilizer they call it!

I doubt the waste of humans living in a house with an approved septic does more harm.

I don't think the issue is the "manure." I think it's all the other "stuff" we put down our drains. Chlorox bleach, Mr. Clean, shaving cream, shampoo, etc., etc. But I'm certainly no expert.

[5picker]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

I don't think the issue is the "manure." I think it's all the other "stuff" we put down our drains. Chlorox bleach, Mr. Clean, shaving cream, shampoo, etc., etc. But I'm certainly no expert.

But that goes against the logic of "it's just grey water" and those who claim it shouldn't go in the septic tank to begin with.

[Lukegsdaddy]

Talking about getting off topic! My My.