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First of all, our septic tank is fine!! Had to stress that. You won't believe the number of people who say, "have you tried Rid-X?"
Our drain field is not fine.
Our house is 21 years old. We are the original owners. It has just come to our attention that the drain field and septic tank may not have been installed correctly. We aren't sure how it passed inspection. (I can't repeat what the guy said this morning!) We're the first in the neighborhood to have a failure, but the next door neighbors probably won't be far behind.
Do we have any recourse after this long?
Any opinions?
BTW, we have an excellent guy who is overseeing the work. When all is said and done, I will be happy to give him a glowing recommendation. Until then, he's mine! Hands off!
After 21 years of it working fine, you probably don't have any recourse. (Against who, anyway?) As for it may not have been installed correctly, does he mean according to current standards and codes, or according to the standards and codes in existence 21 years ago (and does he even know what they were)? Those things change over time, and not just with septic systems, and it could just mean is that the drain field has reached the end of its natural life, depending on your soil type, etc.
Sounds a little suspect that after 21 years of problem free operation you now need major redesign...
I can imagine that something has 'changed' to make things no longer work as they were, like heavier use, different adjacent property uses, changes in underground moisture movement, BUT I also would like INDEPENDENT verification of those changes preferably from a firm that ONLY does engineering / analysis and would not stand to benefit from doing the replacement system...
I do not think you will have any recourse against the builder / firm that originally installed the existing system -- they generally do not provide "unlimited" warranty because they cannot predict how things will change over time.
Curious, it sounds like you have ALREADY decided on a replacement / repair strategy, what sort of warranty will come with this???
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
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20 years ago I think they were still using "orangeberg" pipe in leachfields. State of the art until the perforated PVC pipe came along. Now days, we're starting to see the use of infiltrators, which are High Density plastic inverted "U"'s which should be very effective and subject to less root infiltration.
I've always found it's very easy for contractors to be Monday Morning QB's on the installation of any building system.
We live in the Triangle too ... our subdivision was involved in one of the major failures a number of years ago. Our system was about three years old when it failed and if the builder and developer didn't step up we would have been facing significant bills. We have documented evidence of inspections poorly done at the State level (emails from the inspector asking about the size of the spray field when we have a LPP system, etc.).
All that said, I tend to agree with the other posters here. The drain field is sorta a "wear" item. The pipes clog with roots and soil. Its pretty much a known issue. NC does require a 100% drain field reserve on all lots (I can't say for sure of this was required 21 years ago) for this very reason.
Obviously from here its hard to tell what the problem is and if your contractor is being fair with you. I assume you followed the usual steps of getting multiple quotes?
The County will probably also look at it if you want them too. Some of these guys have good experience....
20 years ago I think they were still using "orangeberg" pipe in leachfields. State of the art until the perforated PVC pipe came along. Now days, we're starting to see the use of infiltrators, which are High Density plastic inverted "U"'s which should be very effective and subject to less root infiltration.
I've always found it's very easy for contractors to be Monday Morning QB's on the installation of any building system.
Mom still lives in the home that she and dad built over 40 years ago. Once in a while she'll need to have work done and she likes to get multiple quotes. I remember one time she had to have repairs made to the roof where racoons had gotten in, so one of the folks she called was the original roofer. He and his son climbed down and starting in on how "this was all wrong", mom dug around in her files and found the ORIGINAL invoice from when this guy roofed the place! Sure quieted him down. I think he might have even blushed a bit. Gave her a good price on the repairs too...
Thanks for all the replies. I posted here first to see what y'all would say. I'm pretty sure we don't have any recourse, but it was worth a shot.
We've had 3 septic guys, a relative who works in a related field, and a county inspector tell us that they don't know how it passed inspection, so I'm not basing it on one opinion. And we have had several quotes.
We've maintained, with regular pumping. It appears that the guy who pumped in early 2009 didn't get all the way to the bottom and get the sludge out. We started having problems with one toilet clogging and gurgling, especially when we did laundry or had a heavy rain. Plumber #1 snaked it. That didn't fix it, so we replaced the toilet. Still nothing. Someone recommended snaking it from the roof (I had never heard of that), so we called another plumber. He was the one who discovered the full septic tank. We had it pumped and it was full again within a week. That's what started the ball rolling. We had to wait on the county to come out and give their opinion. Then we got our estimates.
They haven't been able to do anything because of the rain until this morning. He discovered there wasn't a type of filter (which wasn't required in 1988) that could have prevented this. There were a lot of other things wrong, too. It wasn't as deep as it was supposed to be. The distance from the drain field to the well is a main issue. Now we're waiting for the county guy to come back out and draw up a plan. Someone told Hubby that the county could condemn the property if they couldn't find an acceptable solution. I sure hope that is not the case!
So, looks like we've got a major repair and a torn up yard coming our way. We don't have trees, but we do have a tobacco field behind our house.
Frustrating, but it's all part of home ownership. I'm telling myself to be thankful I have a home.
We live in the Triangle too ... our subdivision was involved in one of the major failures a number of years ago. Our system was about three years old when it failed and if the builder and developer didn't step up we would have been facing significant bills.
Frank
Hi Frank! Nice to see a familiar name respond!
I'm glad your builder and developer stepped up. All of the houses on our street were built by the same guy and about the same time. I think we're the only original owners left!
Rabbit
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Very true!
