Septic Systems

Conventional System Parts

There are several parts to your conventional septic to familiarize yourself with and to better serve you we will go over the basics. To start the first item leaving yourself (should be present on any system installed in the last 15 years) is the plumbers cleanout shown to the right. Your cleanout is where you would typically run a snake to clear clogs when there is an issue but can also be used to find where the true issue lies. If your toilets wont flush and your cleanout is dry then you have a clog in the house but if its full your issue is back towards the tank.

Your septic tank and baffles are the next stop and depending on the age of the system may contain some differences. Your tank is where primary settling takes place and sludge builds up that needs to be pumped out and properly disposed of to prevent catastrophic failure (see images 3 and for for more information). Every tank should have a baffle on the inlet and the outlet to ensure the system does as designed. The inlet baffle (pictured right) is shorter and its purpose is to keep the scum layer from clogging your sewer pipe and prevent wakes within the tank. The outlet baffle is much longer and its purpose is to only allow the clearest water to pass to the rest of the system, without the outlet baffle the remainder of the system will get damaged by the solid material and lead either to replacement or other costly repairs.

Trash tank and when to pump

Your trash tank is much smaller than a conventional septic in most aerobic systems and thus will need to be pumped much more frequent generally 1-3 years depending on use. The only ways to truly know if your aerobic unit needs pumped is to either pump it out and visually inspect the depth of the sludge or to use a profiling tool to measure the sludge depth without removing the water on top first.

Aerobic or Aeration Tank

Your aerobic tank is the middle stage in treatment. In this tank air is added to the bottom and this allows a different bacteria to live and the sewage to be further processed which can really be seen with the clarity of the water leaving the tank. The water leaving your aeriation tank should have around 24″ of visibility. If its lower than you may have an issue with a weak or dead compressor or a sludge issue.

Pump Tank and Chlorinator

In your pump tank your system will have some way of killing the bacteria from the prior two tanks by means of either chlorine tablets, liquid bleach, or a UV light setup. If the bacteria isn’t killed going into the pump tank for prolonged times the bacteria will produce gasses that can corrode the electrical contacts in the tank and in the control panel causing a fire risk and pump damage. The chlorine levels should be closely monitored in this tank for those reasons and so should the sludge levels be monitored to insure that levels do not reach high enough to enter the pump and cause mechanical or electrical damage. If your system is equipped with a tablet chlorinator it is necessary to use aerobic tablets and not pool tablets. The pool tablets are too strong and will raise levels high enough to kill the vegetation that your unit disperses water on.