Flash back to the first week in May. Scott's family came to town. We had a blast. His parents and his sister and her husband stayed at our house. We had around 20 people here partying when we noticed that our septic tank was leaking from the concrete lid outside. We opened it up and, sure enough, it was full to the brim. This should never happen, judging by the fact that the tank is 3 feet or so underground...I called some places and they diagnosed an overload due to our partying.
Now, fast forward a couple months to July 3, the day Addy got her cast off. I was supposed to be hosting dancers for an international dance festival. They were to stay at our house for a week. The thought occurred to me that I should probably have Scott make sure that the septic had drained right (we had checked a couple times before and it had gone down a little, but not to where it should have been). Yeah. Still almost to the top. We decided that we could just pump it and have someone figure out what was wrong. So I called Parker Septic and Rooter man here in town. Yeah. I don't like them. $265 to pump, and the guy tells us that the "baffles" (who made up that word? These are the filters that keep the solids in the tank and let the water out to the drainfield.) had fallen off. Both of them. Supposedly after we had the system inspected a year ago when we bought the house. Okay. So $400 or so dollars and it would be fixed. Only, the guy told us we needed to dig up another lid so that the repair guy could get into the tank to jet out the pipes that probably were clogged with solids because of the missing baffles. Great. Digging up our lawn. Wasn't too excited about that, but excited for the relatively cheap fix. I called and cancelled dancers. With a failed system, it just wasn't going to work out.
This is the first hole Scott dug. Yup, narrowly missed the sprinkler line lol
The next day, I go to drive to Walmart in the car. And it dies. Seriously? Luckily I turned around when it started chugging. Alternator out. Scott fixed it himself. :) I was proud of him.
The next monday, we get another guy from Parkers out here. He had NO clue what the heck he was doing. He took off the second lid we dug up and said that there was no pipe to jet from. He called his boss and he came over and said the same thing. Only, they were really wishy washy about it. Like, he said something about a saturated drainfield, and maybe we should dig up the whole tank...And maybe he could get someone out in a week or so...and STILL could not tell me what was wrong. I was not impressed and was not about to invite them back. So I called a bunch of places and nobody answered. Not a one. I didn't leave messages. I was too irritated.
Later that day, someone called me. I answered and it was a man and he said, "who's this?" To which I replied, "Who's this?" It was Kim Walker. One of the numbers I had called. He's an excavator and septic guy with his own business, no employees. He came out that day, despite the fact that it was after 5. He said that he would have to dig up the pipe going from the tank to the drainfield to be sure it wasn't clogged. He also said there was a hole in that pipe, probably made by the other guys who came out here...yeah. He was here the next day with his backhoe digging it up.
And when he did, he discovered that the tank was not positioned properly and had sunk. He then cut the pipe to replace it and water came flooding back in. Great. Saturated drainfield. That's pretty much the worst news ever. However, I was very impressed with Kim. The other guys were really wishy washy and none of them seemed like they wanted to do anything, especially dig, and were wanting us to do it. Might I mention that this was the week of the biggest show of the semester so Scott was working several late nights. Right. Because I'm going to go dig up the tank...
We immediately made a plan for where the new system would go. We could have used the old tank, but we would have had to try to lift it, fill in some dirt to raise it up and put it back. This was because it was too low. This was a problem because there wasn't enough soil to filter the water before it hit the water table. Kim said that the tank would probably break because it was so old. We decided just to put in a new tank, a bigger tank, while we had the thing dug up anyway. Kim's 13 year old son often came to work with him, and Addy fell in LOVE. She was constantly saying, "mom! See boy! See boy!" And telling me "he's coot (cute) mom!" Oh boy. We have trouble on our hands. I felt so helped and so blessed to have found this random guy from Lyman to come and do our system. He was great the whole time and moved around other jobs so that he could help us finish.
We now have two drainfields and we will switch each time we pump, which should only be around every 5 years, even with a big family because of the bigger tank we put in. We were able to save most of our grass too, though it was a lot of work and a lot of late nights. This was quite the ordeal, but hopefully we'll never have to worry about it again.
This was quite the expensive trial...4200 or so. :( I don't think I could put it better than Scott. "We are crapping on our hard-earned money." And yes we are. But at least we aren't living in a flooded house (thank goodness it did not come to that).
Scott was cutting, I was rolling...That was some heavy sod!
Ellie was smiling in the shade :) I am so grateful she's such a good baby!
Addy LOVED this part!
Addy, Daddy, and the backhoe
The new tank, comin' in!
The new drainfield
Daddy and Addy leveling the ground getting ready to relay the sod. Gotta love Addy's hair...
Anyway, kind of a boring post, but the whole adventure was much more exciting and scary and worrisome than it sounds. I even got a cold sore :P Glad that's over! And this whole time, I couldn't stop thinking of Sid off of Ice Age:
Diego: So if he poops, where does it go?
Sid: Humans are disgusting!
I know all about septic systems now! It was very educational. Also, google "witching" because it was pretty freaking weird...and also awesome! He even let me try!
We are adjusting to life with grass and less men in our backyard...Addy keeps asking me where the boy is...poor heartbroken baby! lol
What an ordeal! Glad it all worked out an that your house did not flood.
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