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Does anyone know anything about septic tanks? Our toliet will not flush we have snaked the line from the house to the septic tank. We replaced the field lines a year ago. Does anyone know what else we could do? :
Last edited by What2do; 07-28-2007 at 03:03 PM..
Reason: misspelled word
sounds like you may have a blockage at the tank inlet baffle. The tank has three access ports, the lagre one in the middle where the tank is pumped, and two smaller access covers where the inlet & outlet baffles are...
that's where paper towles etc. sometines can get 'stuck" and block the line from the house.
google on net for descriptions of septic systems and how with pics and how they work and you'll see what i mean.
requires a little hand digging biut not a terrible job
Good advice above and in addition that .. is it just that one toilet or all the drains in the house?
knowing this will help isolate the issue, if other toilets and tubs work fine then that narrows it down a bit to the problem.
Is it not flushing, or is it clogged? Have you taken the tank out and cleans the lines from the there?
Is it a low flow toilet? This are bad about clogging unless you buy a good one like Elger.
Perhaps your tank is not filling enough and you are not putting enough water through the system to remove all the waste.
When you snaked the line did you make it all the way to the tank?
Have you replaced the feed line from the house to the tank? Some of those are Orangeburg and they collapse in time.
Could it be roots?
When was the tank pumped last?
It can be a number of things as you can see.
As the above 2 posters have stated, there could be many causes for your problem.
Did the problem occur suddenly? Has your septic system been subject to unusually heavy use? Is the ground around your weeping tiles saturated from rain or flooding? If you have a septic system witha raised weeping bed that requires a pump, is the pump working?
The first trick to find where the problem is.
To eliminate the toilet itself, see if other drains will work. For example, put water in a laundry tub or bath tub, pull the plug and see what happens. If the tubs drain normally, the problem is likely in the toilet itself. That means you'll need to dismount the toilet and remove whatever is obstructing the passage.
If no other drains work, then it's time to call your local septic tank pumper and get the tank pumped.
With tank top removed and the tank empty, try flushing the toilet while someone watches the inlet pipe. If you get little or no water, then the problem lies between the house and the tank. Expose the pipe, open the cleanout and put the snake to it.
If you get a strong flow of water out the inlet pipe, the first step is to make sure some debris hasn't wedged itself into your outlet pipe opening. If the pipe is clear.
If you have a septic pump, now would be a good time to make sure it's working. Hose some water into the tank around the pump and manually activate the float switch. If the pumnp works properly then you have issues in either the header pipe or in your weeping tiles.
If you have a cleanout on the header pipe, then put a snake down to see if it's obstructed. If the header is clear, then you'll have to expose the joints where the header meets the weepers. Carefully cut a weeping tile and check it for obstructions with a snake.
Hi. We have a problem with our septic tank. It's really a long story, but we basically got screwed by the builder when the house was built. Our tank is slightly lower than our field lines. When it rains, the tank fills up quickly and the toliet will not flush and bubbles when water is put down other drains. I have had the tank pumped, and when it was empty you could clearly hear the ground water back filling into the tank from the field lines. When it's not raining, we don't have a problem. But after a good rain, it may be 3 days before it's working properly again. It has gotten slightly worse over the years (17), and I'm ready to get it fixed.
The land has settled, and I don't have a clue how to have this fixed. Any ideas?
Hi. We have a problem with our septic tank. It's really a long story, but we basically got screwed by the builder when the house was built. Our tank is slightly lower than our field lines. When it rains, the tank fills up quickly and the toliet will not flush and bubbles when water is put down other drains. I have had the tank pumped, and when it was empty you could clearly hear the ground water back filling into the tank from the field lines. When it's not raining, we don't have a problem. But after a good rain, it may be 3 days before it's working properly again. It has gotten slightly worse over the years (17), and I'm ready to get it fixed.
The land has settled, and I don't have a clue how to have this fixed. Any ideas?
This is a pretty blatant defect and should have been addressed with the builder when the house was new. I believe technically you may have recourse against your town because this system should never have passed inspection. You could consult an attorney on going that route and trying to recover some money from the town, possibly splitting the cost of repair with them. Regardless, it sounds like you need an entire new septic system with the leach field and tank set at proper depths. You might be able to salvage the old tank and just go with a new leach field. I'd consult a septic system company and see what they recommend. Good luck.
We recently had a severe issue because the filter (which we didn't know was as easily accesible as it is...) was clogged. The guy was here maybe 10 minutes and it was all fixed.
I have had the tank pumped, and when it was empty you could clearly hear the ground water back filling into the tank from the field lines. When it's not raining, we don't have a problem.
The problem isn't that your tank is lower than your leach bed; if your tank outlet was lower than your leach bed, your system would not work regardless of rainfall amounts. You have what is known as a percolation issue.
Leach beds need to be installed in areas that have a signifigant ability to absorb and disperse water and fluid, (percolate).
What is happening in your specific case is that when the ground around your leach bed becomes saturated with rainwater, there's no capacity left to handle any effluent drainage. The level of the rainwater rises high enough in the soil to cause a reverse flow into your septic tank.
This lack of percolation could be from any number of causes such as the leach bed being installed in a low-lying area, a lack of proper sand-gravel base around your weeping tiles, or a bedrock formation under your leach bed which traps rainwater in the soil above.
The solution is going to be costly, but you likely will be able to use your old tank.
The old leach bed needs to either be ripped out, or at least disconnected.
Percolation tests will be done to see if the ground in the location of the new leach bed has enough water absorbtion capability to allow a bed installation. A perc test requires that a certain size hole be dug to a specific depth. A measured amount of water is then dumped into the hole and timed rate of absorbtion is measured. Most areas have specific guidelines for acceptable perc rates.
If the natural soil of the area you've chosen won't meet the perc standard, or if the area is low-lying, then often sand and gravel are brought in to raise the area above the surrounding soil. The sand gravel mix is calculated to provide enough absorbtion capability to handle both your effluent discharge and your region's rainfall.
We all realize that effluent doesn't run uphill, so a third chamber is added to your septic tank. This chamber will contain an effluent pump run by a float switch. When a certain level of liquid is reached in the third chamber, the pump fires on and pumps the effluent up to your leach bed. Your effluent then disperses in a normal fashion.
These systems work quite well. Their only downside is that you occasionally have to replace your effluent pump.
my septic tank fill up and i had it pumped but now i cant get flow back to the tan!!i have put a ballon down in the header where the pipes go down to the tank if i go down past where the pipes go to the tank i get flow in the septic tank but if i pull it closer to the top of the header i do not get flow does this mean i still have some blockage or do i have another problem?
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Septic problems
septic tank
