Will Pumping Your Septic Tank Fix Wet Drain Field

Septic system maintenance is not complicated, and it does not need to be expensive. Budget comes down to four key elements:

Inspect and Pump Frequently
Use Water Efficiently
Properly Dispose of Waste
Maintain Your Drainfield

For more about septic arrangement maintenance, meet answers to frequent questions on caring for septic systems.

Inspect and Pump Frequently

The boilerplate household septic system should be inspected at to the lowest degree every 3 years by a septic service professional. Household septic tanks are typically pumped every three to five years. Alternative systems with electrical bladder switches, pumps, or mechanical components should be inspected more often, more often than not once a year. A service contract is important since alternative systems take mechanized parts.

These are the major factors that influence how often to pump your septic organization:

Household size
Total wastewater generated
Book of solids in wastewater
Septic tank size

Here is what you need to know for a service provider

When you call a septic service provider, he or she will inspect for leaks and examine the scum and sludge layers in your septic tank.

Proceed the maintenance records on work performed on your septic system. See the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Clan'due south Guide and Record Keeping Binder example.

Your septic tank includes a T-shaped outlet which prevents sludge and scum from leaving the tank and traveling into the drainfield area. Your tank should be pumped if the lesser of the scum layer is within six inches of the bottom of the outlet, if the meridian of the sludge layer is within 12 inches of the outlet, or if more than 25% of the liquid depth is sludge and scum.

To keep track of when to pump out your tank, write downwards the sludge and scum levels constitute by the septic professional.

The service provider should annotation repairs completed and the tank condition in your system's service report. If other repairs are recommended, rent a repair person soon.

The National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Clan (NOWRA) has a directory of septic system professionals that makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to notice service professionals in your area.

Utilise Water Efficiently

The average indoor water use in a typical unmarried-family home can be equally much as 70 gallons per individual, per twenty-four hours. Just a single leaky or running toilet tin add equally much every bit 200 gallons of water per twenty-four hours.

All the water a household sends downwardly its pipes ends up in its septic organization. The more water a household conserves, the less water enters the septic arrangement. Efficient water utilise improves the operation of a septic system and reduces the risk of malfunctions.

EPA's WaterSense program has many uncomplicated ways to salvage water and water-efficient products.

High-efficiency toilets.
Toilet use accounts for 25 to 30 percent of household water employ. Many older homes have toilets with three.v- to 5-gallon reservoirs, while newer, high-efficiency toilets apply 1.six gallons of h2o or less per flush. Replacing existing toilets with high-efficiency models is an like shooting fish in a barrel way to reduce the amount of household water entering your septic system.
Faucet aerators and high-efficiency showerheads.
Faucet aerators, high-efficiency showerheads, and shower flow restrictors help reduce water utilize and the volume of water entering your septic system.
Washing machines.
Washing small loads of laundry on your washing machine's big-load cycle wastes water and energy. By selecting the proper load size, you lot will reduce water waste matter. If you lot are unable to select a load size, run but total loads of laundry.

Try to spread washing car use throughout the week. Doing all household laundry in one solar day might seem similar a time-saver but it can harm your septic system. It will non permit your septic tank enough time to treat waste product and could flood your drainfield.

Clothes washers that comport the ENERGY STAR label apply 35 percent less energy and fifty percentage less h2o than standard models. Other Energy Star appliances provide significant energy and water savings.

Properly Dispose of Waste

Whether you flush it downwards the toilet, grind information technology in the garbage disposal, or cascade it down the sink, shower, or bath, everything that goes down your drain ends up in your septic system. What goes down the drain affects how well your septic system works.

Toilets aren't trash cans!

Your septic system is not a trash can. An easy dominion of thumb is not to flush anything likewise human waste material and toilet paper. Never flush:

Cooking grease or oil
Non-flushable wipes, such as baby wipes or other wet wipes
Photographic solutions
Feminine hygiene products
Condoms
Dental floss
Diapers
Cigarette butts
Coffee grounds
Cat litter
Paper towels
Pharmaceuticals
Household chemicals similar gasoline, oil, pesticides, antifreeze, and paint or paint thinners

Call back at the sink!

Your septic system contains a collection of living organisms that digest and treat household waste product. Pouring toxins downward your bleed can impale these organisms and harm your septic organisation. Whether you are at the kitchen sink, bathtub, or utility sink:

Avoid chemical drain openers for a chock-full drain. Instead, utilize boiling water or a bleed snake.
Never pour cooking oil or grease down the bleed.
Never pour oil-based paints, solvents, or large volumes of toxic cleaners downward the bleed. Even latex paint waste product should exist minimized.
Eliminate or limit the utilize of a garbage disposal. This will significantly reduce the amount of fats, grease, and solids that enter your septic tank and could clog the drainfield.

Maintain Your Drainfield

Your drainfield—a component of your septic system that removes contaminants from the liquid that emerges from your septic tank—is an of import office of your septic organisation. Here are a few things you should do to maintain it:

Parking: Do not park or drive on your drainfield.
Planting: Constitute trees the appropriate altitude from your drainfield to keep roots from growing into your septic system. A septic service professional can suggest you of the proper distance, depending on your septic tank and landscape.
Placing: Proceed roof drains, sump pumps, and other rainwater drainage systems away from your drainfield surface area. Excess h2o slows downward or stops the wastewater treatment process.

Frequent Questions on Caring for Septic Systems

Should I exist careful of what I pour down the bleed?
- Yes. Many materials that might be poured down the drain do not easily decompose. This can exist harmful to the healthy leaner that abound in your septic tank and drainfield to help break down organic matter. Practice non pour grease (such equally fats, butter, wax, cheese, heavy cream), liquid wastes (such as pesticides, drain cleaners, household chemicals, paints, pigment thinners), oils or coffee grounds down the drain. If you lot have a garbage disposal, limit its use considering food waste tin add an unnecessary amount of solid material to your septic tank. Harmful chemicals put down your drain can too be discharged into the groundwater and can impact drinking water supplies and the environs. EPA's Quick Tip Video explains which items to put or not put downward the drain, "Think at the Sink!"
Does using a garbage disposal unit touch on my septic arrangement?
- Yes. Using an in-sink garbage disposal unit of measurement can impact how oftentimes yous need to pump your septic tank. Nutrient waste normally is slowly digested past the healthy bacteria in your septic tank and can accumulate as scum and sludge. If a big amount of water enters the septic tank or the tank fills upwardly with solids, information technology tin can button the solids into the drainfield, causing the pipes to clog and increasing the thickness of the biomat (a bacteria layer that forms on the lesser and sides of the drainfield trenches). If you must utilise a garbage disposal unit, your tank will need to exist pumped more frequently.
What can I affluent down the toilet?
- Merely flush human waste material and toilet paper down the toilet.
- Never flush these items down the toilet because they could clog your septic arrangement and cause a failure:
  - Cooking grease or oil
  - Non-flushable wipes, such as baby wipes or other wet wipes
  - Photographic solutions
  - Feminine hygiene products
  - Condoms
  - Dental floss
  - Diapers
  - Cigarette butts
  - Coffee grounds
  - True cat litter
  - Paper towels
  - Pharmaceuticals
  - Household chemicals like gasoline, oil, pesticides, antifreeze, and paint or paint thinners
- EPA's Quick Tip Video explains which items not to put down the toilet, "Don't Overload the Commode!"
Should I avoid driving or building on my drainfield?
- Yeah. Virtually drainfields (such every bit rock and pipe, chamber system, etc.) are constructed in open backyard areas and are not designed to handle vehicles or heavy equipment driving on them. The weight of vehicles and heavy equipment compacts the soil, which can damage pipes. Impermeable materials, such as concrete and asphalt, should not be laid on top of a drainfield because they reduce evaporation and the supply of oxygen to the soil. Oxygen is critical to the healthy leaner in your septic system and the proper breakdown of sewage past soil microorganisms.
- Practice not build any structures in or on your drainfield area without checking with a local designer or permitting authority. It is not recommended to plant trees, shrubs, or vegetable gardens on the drainfield. Tree and shrub roots can ensnarl and impairment drainfield pipes. Vegetables can potentially be exposed to sewage effluent and unsafe to consume. Native grasses and ground covers are the most appropriate planting over your drainfield. Come across EPA'southward Proper Landscaping On and Around Your Septic System factsheet or WaterSense's What to Plant for more information.
- EPA's Quick Tip Video explains how to safeguard your drainfield, "Shield Your Field!"