Septic tie in

relaxin wrote:
and whatever you do,,,, for heavens sake,,,, do not,, I repeat do not put poop from your RV into your residential septic tank,, for your own safety and the safety of your neighbors and perhaps even your entire town do not ever mix house poop with camping poop.

PLEASE DON'T

You are so totally wrong here. The problem are those extra valves that can be used to let gray water back up into the black tank during extended camping without a sewer.

You see if the gray and black water touch, then the gray tank becomes irreversably tainted and the government shuts down.

I asked the county inspector about adding a dump and he said I couldn't get a permit to add it to my existing system. I told him how it would be used and he said it would be fine and to do it anyway. I doted over the septic in my previous house. The family that was in this house were MAJOR water users and they never added enzymes etc to the system. The guy used to turn on the shower and then go make coffee and drink it before he took his shower and this system checked out great in the septic inspection - as good as my other system looked. I used to spend a lot of money on septic additives and fret over every little thing but not anymore. Don't use chlorine or other harmful chemicals and watch the water usage.

travelnutz wrote:
Mocoondo,

A lot of exaggerating in your post!

However, we and the septic pumping service did notice a slight slow down last year as he had us repeatedly flush all 3 toilets over and over with the cold water on full blast in the laundry tub to see if the tank level would rise which happens when the drainfield is clogging. No soggy ground and just a small increase in tank level.

Apparently exaggerating is contagious.

A typical tank has two compartments, primary and secondary with one inlet and one outlet port. The liquid (and other 'stuff') pours into the primary chamber, as it does the already full chamber spills an equal amount of liquid over the baffle into the secondary chamber in an extremely thin layer over a large flat baffle meant to keep solids in the primary chamber. As the liquid enters the secondary chamber, which is also full to the spill point, it again displaces an equal amount of liquid which then pours out into the tile field.

There is only one way for the liquid in a septic tank to rise, even a little bit, is if the outfall pipe is clogged.

A septic system is designed to take no more than about 10 to 12 gallons in a single shot, there is no way 80 or 100 gallons could be safe to do. Not even once.

As for your health board, there's lots of things in this world that you don't need a permit for, doesn't make them wise to do.

Mocoondo,

A lot of exaggerating in your post! We have been dumping our many RV's into our home septic tank for over 20 years now and so have our kids been dumping their RV's into it. The total septic system is 45 years old now and still works just fine yet. However, we and the septic pumping service did notice a slight slow down last year as he had us repeatedly flush all 3 toilets over and over with the cold water on full blast in the laundry tub to see if the tank level would rise which happens when the drainfield is clogging. No soggy ground and just a small increase in tank level. It was pumped out and we had it checked out as the drain field is becoming root bound from the 2 large hard maples, a 3 stump soft silver maple, and a mountain ash we had planted ourselves when they were about 3' high 37 years ago. They have surrounded the drain field for the last 37 of the 45 years the septic system has been in.

How do we know it's becoming root bound? Had 8 core samples taken 4' deep around the outside edges of the drain field and all had more various sized roots than dirt content. 45 years of constant use is a very long time for a septic system to last! The cast concrete septic tank was still in excellent shape so we had a second drainfield added starting about 25' away from the old one and both are hooked together. Yes, we got a permit to do it and it was done by a septic system pro and inspected and approved by the county health department. so now we have 2 drainfields off the same septic tank and yes, the external RV drain is still there and used.

When we asked the county health department for a permit to add the RV dump drain, they said we didn't need any as long as it was totally on our property and wasn't hooked to any permanent build structure that was or to be occupied by humans living in. RV's are not considered a permanent structure and that's what they told us. Chicago may have different rules and laws because of the 10 million living there but our system meets the criteria required here and was approved and our septic system works great and always has.

BTW, our county has just under 300,000 people living in it and there's one heck of a lot of septic systems in our county and rarely ever hear of one failing unless not being pumped out often enough and the sludge buildup chokes the usable liquid bacteria action volume. Ours has always been religiously pumped every 5 years without fail. So has the other 3 properties we own septic tanks been pumped every 5 years and they had no problems either.

The big thing that stops the bacteria action in septic tanks is flushing bleach water and bleach containing products into them. Also, some of the other bacteria killers in household etc cleaning etc products. Our health department has several pamphlets on the racks about their usage and the results they cause in septic systems and also in municipal sewage systems. This includes other items like Handi-Wipes or Baby Wipes etc.

and whatever you do,,,, for heavens sake,,,, do not,, I repeat do not put poop from your RV into your residential septic tank,, for your own safety and the safety of your neighbors and perhaps even your entire town do not ever mix house poop with camping poop.

PLEASE DON'T

There are several reasons why you do not want to dump your holding tanks into your septic.

1. The septic process works because of anaerobic bacteria, which is bacteria that thrives in the absence of oxygen. If you tee into a drain line that opens to the surface, you are admitting air into the system and will kill off a lot of your "good" bacteria.

2. In the same vein, if you use any sort of deodorizing holding tank chemical, that stuff works by killing off odor causing anaerobic bacteria, which is exactly the bacteria you need for your septic system to work properly. Regular emptying of holding tank contents laced with bacteria killer will make your septic system much less efficient.

3. Finally, your septic tank is not designed to handle an 80-100 gallon introduction at any one time. Sudden emptying of your tanks into the septic will break up the sludge cap, pushing sludge up over the baffel and out into your fields, plugging them up with sludge. It won't take long before you are digging up your yard because your septic has failed.

If you absolutely insist on proceeding with this, it would be a good idea to stop using any sort of holding tank chemical and also consider dumping only when the tanks are partially full.

At my previous house, we all were on well and septic (never again, but that is an entirely different story). My neighbor, also an RV owner, had a dump line tied into his drain. One Sunday they came in off a trip, wife and kids piled into the house with the dirty laundry, they started a load in the washer and wife went upstairs to shower. Husband was outside putting the coach to bed and dumped the tanks. The following morning, they woke up to toilets that wouldn't flush, sink drains that wouldn't drain and a pond of raw sewage out in the back yard.

Just a thought:

Look into local codes instead of asking on here for slope on the pipe. One person says 1/4 inch per foot, another said 1 inch for the whole 25 foot run.


Again, as always, just my opinion.

Why wouldn't you just purchase a macerator pump and a garden hose? Seems like a much simpler solution.

Tom

Just be careful when dumping into a residential septic system, it's way too easy to over top the baffles with a sudden large volume of inflow.

A residential septic system is designed to take no more than about 6 gallons of 'stuff' and introduced away (usually opposite to) the baffle between primary and secondary chambers.

When you dump nearly 10 times that much at once you run the very real risk of flushing 'stuff' out into the tile field itself. Clogging the tile can be spendy to fix.

Indian Health Service installed a new septic system for us a few years back. They could not run an extra "clean out" to my RV site, but the installer did put in a "Y" joint. It was about 25' from the nearest cleanout to where I wanted the RV dump, er, extra cleanout. I dug the ditch, tied 4" Schedule 40 PVC into the "Y," and ran the 25 or so feet of pipe to my RV site. Works great - one of my better ideas. Glued all my connections. If this, or any other piece of pipe ever needs to be removed, I'll just cut it off. A good recip saw works wonders for this job.

GM