Dumping Waste in Septics
I have read on several different forums and subjects here of RVers dumping their wastewater into their home septic systems. If you do as I do and use RV chemicals to treat your tanks of the waste and ...
Forum Discussion
3oaks wrote:
Some areas of the country are more prone to septic system failures than others. Particularly when they are over taxed all at once and depending on the soil composition.
As bid_time noted, this actually is NOT the problem. The problem is that the cheapest septic system to install is one that gravity drains from the home through the tank to the leach field such that there is a steady low flow trickle coming out of the tank. What happens in such cases is that the very first few feet of leach field are constantly loaded and never get to breathe. Leach fields are supposed to operate on aerobic bacteria (oxygen breathers). A portion of the field that never dries out goes anaerobic (no oxygen) which doesn't break the organics down to solubles as much as aerobics do. The end result is that you get "creeping black death" of the leach field. The pores progressively plug with undecomposed organics until the leach field no longer can leach.
More effective systems let a measured amount of volume accumulate in the pump well and that whole volume is then pumped to the leach field in a short time to fill the whole field. Then the whole thing gets to rest and "breathe" again while the next batch accumulates in the pump manhole. These systems that "dose" the field with long periods of zero flow in between last MUCH longer than the cheaper gravity systems. Especially in soils with marginal percolation rates to begin with.
