You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
We just bought a new house and it has a septic system. A part of the system includes an overflow alarm. What is this for? Overflow obviously, but where is it overflowing too? What do we do it it overflows?
We had a septic system in the house I grew up in but it did not have an overflow alarm. (Things that make you go hmmmmm?)
I just had a new septic tank installed on my new property. If there is an alarm, I am not aware of it.
I would think the intent of the alarm would be to warn you that the tank is full and on it's way back into the house. This would happen when the tank and drainfield have reached saturation and is no longer draining. Unless there is something wrong with the tank and/or drain field, I wouldn't imagine the alarm would sound for many years. If this is the case, by the time the alarm goes off, you'll have forgotten it was there. At least I know I would!
When the tank overflows, you call a septic company to pump out the tank and evaluate the cause of the problem.
This is only my theory on "in ground" septic tanks and drainfields. Any other type systems are a mystery to me.
That sounds about right. We have a river close by and I kind of thought it had something to do with that but there is no way for the two to 'meet up' so to speak. That is, unless the river washes away a couple hundred cubic yards of soil.
"Low pressure" septic systems usually have an alarm. A low pressure system has a pump that comes on every so often and pumps the liquid into the drainfield at a designated rate. This is usually used for land that has poor perkability or where excess runoff would pollute the environment.
What will happen is when the sewer water gets to be at too high of a level in the tank (caused by the pump not working) a float will trip the power to the alarm, alerting you to the fact the pump is not working.
Thanks Horseshoe - I think perkablity is not a problem - most likely the excess run-off thing. Our system is fairly new (less than a year) so we probably won't have a problem anytime soon.
I wouldn't think so either. In NC septic system size is determined by the number of bedrooms a house has. (Pretty weird,eh? I first thought it should be cus of the number of bathrooms! I reckon the number of bedrooms makes since though...it lets you know how many people would be living there.)
got2Bgreen if you have a pooppump ( also known as a s**tgrinder ) you should only feed it paper and human waste. We have one and it took several plumber visits and her having to help before my daughter learned to use the waste can. Oddist thing the plumber pulled out was my underwear, the 3 year old nephew got into the hamper and sent them on their way. They work well but are one more thing to fail at the worse time.
Horseshoe - Thanks - we are enjoying it immensely!
kwetz - yup - only human waste and paper (tp). We don't even have a garbage disposal - that goes in the compost bin.
in_da - Thanks - that does look a lot like our system. I'm not really sure what the 'replacement area' is though...I can definitely tell where the drain field is...the grass grows very green and tall there...
