Septic Safe Wipes for Toliet paper?

This pic will turn your stomach, shown is the hardware, wiring and such from one of our sewage pumping stations for my village. Much of the derbis is wet wipes.

wny_pat wrote:

Don't you have a trap outside of the house? I do and can run the snake from there to the main sewer. It is right outside the house. So much better than messing around in the basement.

For us, it is not uncommon to have the sewer cleanout in the basement due to climate. Some may have an outside cleanout in addition to a basement cleanout, but I can't say that I would consider it the norm around here.

Mocoondo wrote:

I sure learned my lesson. Indeed, they are flushable, but I'm here to tell you that they don't make it all the way out to the street.

After hearing all these other stories, I'm surprised that a class-action lawsuit hasn't taken place because I'm surely not the only one who ruined a fully finished basement because of those wipes.

I'm now so anal about it (forgive the pun) that I purchased my own drain cleaner and I snake the drain every other month just as a preventative measure. If you think carpeting is heavy, try hauling it out of the basement soaked in poopy water.

Don't you have a trap outside of the house? I do and can run the snake from there to the main sewer. It is right outside the house. So much better than messing around in the basement.

daugen wrote:
man I'm getting the shivers reading this, as my sick wife has been flushing these things down the toilet like crazy recently. We have city water and good pressure, and I ask her to always flush at least twice.

Go rent a drain cleaner and snake your line out to the street. That is the best way of knowing for sure that your line is clear.

We used those wipes in complete moderation, say, no more than two per day, and ended up with $30K worth of poopy in our basement. When I snaked my line, I pulled out about three big hunks of those wipes, each roughly the size of a wet raccoon. Probably several hundred of those wipes in all. Keep in mind, my sewer line is nothing unusual; just a straight shot out to the main, and a relatively new home, so no major root infestation or anything disruptive to the line.

I sure learned my lesson. Indeed, they are flushable, but I'm here to tell you that they don't make it all the way out to the street.

After hearing all these other stories, I'm surprised that a class-action lawsuit hasn't taken place because I'm surely not the only one who ruined a fully finished basement because of those wipes.

I'm now so anal about it (forgive the pun) that I purchased my own drain cleaner and I snake the drain every other month just as a preventative measure. If you think carpeting is heavy, try hauling it out of the basement soaked in poopy water.

We are stupid. We buy and use the rv specific toilet paper unless we can't get any, then we will purchase a roll or 4 pack of septic safe paper. We really haven't found much of a difference in price per roll. At least it's not significant of a difference. When we camp and go in to their general stores, they sell the rv specific paper, so we assume that is what they would rather us use. So we do.

We never know what kind of system them have for sewage and really don't care. We just hope it works and try to be good campers and use the type of stuff they sell.

man I'm getting the shivers reading this, as my sick wife has been flushing these things down the toilet like crazy recently. We have city water and good pressure, and I ask her to always flush at least twice.

Short of rotorooting, is there any additive or helpful process that could unclog or at least slowly loosen these things?

I wonder if I send the wipe people a bill for cleaning out my sewer pipes, wonder if they would pay to shut me up. They have to know what is going on.

My wife and I lived aboard our boat for three years, and both heads had LectraSan onboard septic systems. We only used the cheesy lightweight rv paper and hated it. My wife snuck in a roll of the good stuff once, and I snagged it pretty quickly, but it didn't get stuck. It did make a mess in the LectraSan where the high voltage DC plates that make bleach out of salt water get covered by the paper and don't work as well. Many trips to the Raritan factory in NJ to get those units fixed, and replaced. But not having to deal with the smell, well, that was pretty wonderful. Both our toilets were Raritan, an older Crown and the newer Atlantes.

I wonder since China seems to be making everything else, where is our half price Chinese rv paper? The pricing on regular rv and boat paper is a crime.

Can you imagine the corporate response which precisely confirms
that their company only said the wipe would flush, as in go down your toilet.
They say nothing about getting stuck from there on out. Ought to be a class action suit on this, but maybe the plumbers lobby is loving this.

I am on the sewer board for our small town's sewer system. I get to see first hand all the damage these so called flushable wipes do. At all of our pumping stations they wrap around all the pumps, wiring, and float switches in the manhole. It costs thousands of dollars a year in extra maintainance because of these wipes. Also,on my street we have what you call a pressure sewer system which includes a tank and sewage pump in our yard. I threw one flushable wipe down the toilet, within a day it had jammed a several hp 220 V pump in the tank. Had to pull the pump, disassemble it and remove the wipe. If you use the wipes put them only in the trash!

Use toilet paper plus a squirt of baby lotion. It will work better than the wipes. And the lotion goes on the toilet paper.

My dad accidently flushed one of the pads down the hatch in his Roadtrek Motorhome. It ended up trashing the macerator pump when it wound around the impeller and cost him a little shy of $700 for a new pump. Lesson learned the hard way.

We just had the toilet back-up in my wife's store. The plumber found "flushable" sanitary wipes clogging the waste pipe. We have a sign asking people not to flush anything but TP in the toilet. I think that I will also mount a copy of the plumbing bill.