Septic fun

[kevm14]

I'll give a quick summary and follow up with pictures.

Noticed a wet part of my yard right next to my house on July 4th. This part of my yard is directly above the septic pipe that exits my foundation and goes into the septic tank. I checked inside and eventually I saw that it was backing up intermittently through the washer drain pipe. None of this is good. Flushing a toilet didn't directly coincide with backing up but there was clearly evidence of gross water and it seemed to be coming from that pipe so I knew there was some kind of issue. My worst nightmare was that the leach field was plugged and the tank was backing up.

I called Mumford the next morning and they were able to come same day. I reported the issues and ordered a pumping and general assessment. On the phone, the lady said if I did not have a large section of yard that was swampy that my leach field may be OK. This was good news. Later that day while waiting I tried to check when the last time I was pumped. E-mail records showed 2018 so I figured, wow, I waited 4 years and this is what I get. But I called them back to confirm and they said the pumped in 2021 so it had only been a year. Somehow this felt like bad news.

They arrived around 2pm and immediately dug, removed the cover and began pumping. I asked for an initial assessment. Mainly I wanted to know if the level seemed high or anything looked abnormal. They reported that everything looked 100% normal, including tank and leach field implied performance. I said....well something is wrong. After describing the issue he said, go flush a toilet and we'll check the flow into the tank, since you can see the pipe easily after removing the top cover.

I flushed a toilet and......barely a trickle. OK, so something was clogged in the plumbing leading to the tank. He said what he typically sees on a system this age (mid 70s, likely original) is this: a cast iron sewage pipe goes through the house foundation and some feet into the ground. It stops before the tank. Then, a different pipe made of paper and tar is sort of cemented (joined) to the cast iron pipe. This pipe just breaks down over time and can clog or otherwise collapse. In order to at least confirm the theory and possibly get my septic functional, he installed a 90 degree adapter on his suction hose and briefly applied it to the inlet pipe to suck through whatever was in there.

Almost as soon as he did so it pulled through some junk and water started flowing again! He said go flush toilets until it runs clear. Took about 5 flushes and it started to run clear.

The repair required here was to replace the 3-4 foot section of this paper/tar pipe with 4" PVC pipe and a rubber Furnco coupler. Then mortar mix to seal it to the tank. Not really a high tech repair. He said he does like one a week but was jammed up this week. I said what does that typically cost? He looked at it and said, about $600. He said "if you are a DIY type person this is that kind of repair if you are interested." He gave me more info and said to contact the office with my decision.

My thought was $600 was way too high. So what I did was basically trench the hole myself and exposed the cast iron sewage pipe as well as that cement joiner he described. I didn't want to dig up the paper/tar pipe because I knew there was nothing left and if I put a shovel into it, it would just fall apart and I'd be draining into my ground. So I took some pictures, sent them and said, here's what I am dealing with - let me know. The plan was to do the job Sat morning if they did not contact me all week.

Friday morning they e-mailed me and said we can actually do it today because we had an opening. I called back and said what's the quote? The response was that I had done most of the digging and they gave me two prices: $400 to complete the job and backfill or $300 to complete the job and leave it open for me to backfill. I elected for $300 because that seemed much more reasonable than $600.

So they came and did it while no one was even home and now it's done. I backfilled (a bit of work but no regrets) so all I need to do is do some top soil work and overseed in the fall. Repair complete.