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When the field is planned, the builder should take into
consideration things like soil composition, trees and
ground water levels that may interfere with the field's
freedom of movement. Furthermore, before a septic system
is constructed, county regulations require the soil have
a "perc" test. The percolation test is a way of
determining the amount of time and space required for
the soil to effectively clean the draining water before
the water reaches the water table. Places with heavy
clay soils may not "perk" properly, so that any
wastewater sent into the ground might just puddle up and
sit. Some building sites can't be approved for septic
systems because the soil just won't allow enough water
to run through—any sewage would then become a health
hazard, polluting the area and leading to diseases such
as typhoid and cholera. (If you've ever wondered why
slums often breed such diseases, it's because some
countries don't regulate the sewage in poverty stricken
areas, and people bathe in the same water they drink).
When the septic tank gets too full, it overflows,
sending untreated sewage onto the surface of the ground.
This even doesn't go unnoticed for long, since a messy,
smelly pool of water and who-knows-what will appear in
the drain field. This can be expensive as well as
distressing, since the tank will need pumping and the
ground that has been contaminated with raw sewage will
need to be cleaned up as well as possible and then left
to recover. Sometimes the drain field has to be moved to
another location, which can cost thousands of dollars.
Septic tanks can get too full when they aren't pumped
regularly; they can fill up fast if the homeowner does
load after load of laundry without giving the tank time
to recover and send the gray water to the leach field;
they can become full very quickly when the leach lines
have become plugged. There are any number of reasons for
a tank to overflow, but if you pay attention to your
water usage and keep the bacteria populations in the
leach lines and septic tank, there shouldn't be a
problem with overflow.
Maintaining a septic system is easiest when you do a
little preventive maintenance. Nothing could be easier!
Once a week, using a bacterial drain cleaner like
Drainbo, clean your toilet. Brushing Drainbo under the
rim of the toilet deposits the beneficial bacteria that
will kill other, odor-causing bacteria that will
otherwise make your plumbing fixtures smell bad. Once
the toilet is flushed, the bacteria travel along the
plumbing lines. Some will cling to pipes or joints where
material has built up, where they will digest the
material, removing potential clogs before they start.
Other bacteria will make its way to the septic tank,
remaining to digest solid waste in the tank or cleaning
out the leach lines in the drain field. The Drainbo
bacteria do what the natural soil bacteria do when
wastewater enters the drain field, but they do it
faster, keeping the plumbing clean and clear.
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