Thread: Raw Sewage

Fun Fun Fun:

Well I'm officially exhausted with my septic problem. The pipe was cracked while searching for the septic and caused a major back up. I finished digging the line out day before yesterday and now I'm cleaning the line path.

I had to take a break yesterday to go to atl and pick up a juggling friend who recently underwent major heart surgery after suffering an aortal rupture. I drove him to some friends near Charlottsville VA for a few weeks rest and recouperation. The friends are vegan in diet with about 65% being raw by the nature of how they eat, nothing they're trying to do so it's a good start.

I got back home this afternoon, had some visitors and then tried to do some cleaning. The 2 things I enjoyed while travelling was 1) a hot shower and 2) a slow, relaxing shave with my home made vegetable based soap. I love making soaps almost as much as I love the sounds of nature arranged in a symphonic composition.

In the a.m. it will be back to the grind so to speak. I'm really not looking forward to disecting the line and trying to capture the backed up sewage in a bucket. *bleh*

I dug the first 14ft by hand and the last 32 ft by a combination of ditch witch and hand.

Here's a few pictures of the project

Wow, I can't believe you did that by hand! Of course, I come from the land of red clay, but still. I'm a big fan of ditch witch

Man I sure hope for your sake that that lasts another hundred years!!!

I ended up digging another 2.5 feet out to expose the part going into the septic. It's a good thing. there was a root growing over/into the part just inches from the septic wall. I got the root out and tried a piece of the new pipe to see if it would fit into the rubber connector lining the septic but no go. I'm going to have to cut a piece of the thinner pipe then add a coupler as an adapter to the new stuff then one of the thicker pipe couplers and some 45 degree elbows and then I'll be back on track .

I'm putting a T up next to the porch for a clean out. I'll get a truck load of sand in and cover it all with sand and then "treat" the sand to prevent roots from growing. Eventually the roots will get through to the pipe but it will delay it a while. If this lasts me 20 years before I have to clean it out with roto-rooter I'll be tickled pink.

Glen F

Well, the "Tee" I used is called a "clean out" tee so it's supposedly made for this kind of stuff. I'm putting a 2nd clean out under the porch after I remove the 3 inch pipe from under the house and replace it with 4 inch. For some reason they went from 4 inch to 3 inch and back to 4 inch. makes no sense to me. Thanks Joe for the heads up on the cleanouts

I was unable to find the metal culvert pipe I wanted so I'll just do the sand and treat it. Here's some pics the new line. It's angled a bit but I couldn't get any elbows to give me a good enough angle that I could run the entire line straight.