It is septic tank pumping day at our house

Posted By on October 2, 2012

greenlake_septicpan2012

Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to play with the panorama feature on my new iPhone 5, but decided to take a photo before digging to find the lid of the septic tank. The photo above is current October 2012 and the photo below was as we built the house in 1995 and put the septic system in (as usual, click for larger images).

Wow … 1995 … has it really been that long?

GreenLake_SepticSystem1995

While on the subject of septic tanks, we’ve had a tank and leech bed system most of our lives. This will be the second time I can recall having our system pumped. The first was of necessity in the middle of winter – ugh, but eventually became a requirement since our township was annexed by a city. Our current 17 year old system is being done before my daughter’s wedding … as a preventative measure. Personally I don’t think it needs to be pumped, but would rather not face my wife IF the inevitable happens with a house full of people (chalk that last bit of wisdom up to  30 years of marriage).

There are a couple schools of thought as to regular pumping or to allowing solids to naturally degrade. At one time I added additional bacteria to the tanks, but really don’t think that is necessary if you can restrict how much paper (and kind of TP) as well as kitchen scraps that go down the drain. I also lecture (usually ignored) on how much Clorox to use in the laundry in order to keep the bacteria actively breaking down waste. Hopefully now that the kids are away and there are only two of use in the house, we will never have to pump our tank again.

septicsystem

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