Water Table

D

danole

Registered User
Messages
192
What seems to be happening with our septic tank is that the water table has risen so much (wit all the rain!) that the water's not soaking away out of the tank.I had a look last week & it's way up the manhole.The tank was only emptied last month.I'm just wondering is this the way it's going to be or is there something I could do to cure the problem once & for all?Thanks!
 
My only suggestions are :

1) Flush less for the moment.

2) Reverse the Global Warming at the moment in order to stabilise the current extremes in the world's climate.

#2 might be difficult to achieve.
 
Indeed - if you're not flushing then you might want to ease off on the #2s for a while! Phew! :eek:
 
Best option is to raise the percolation area. this would mean, diggering up existing percolation pipes & raising with imported soil & relay the pipes.
or better again, to relocate percolation area, import suitable soil for percolation and lay new pipes.
 
not sure how that would work, there has to be a fall from the tank, raising the ground wont help. Im not sure how this can be solved to be honest
 
Hagimalone is right on this one, there is not really a cure for the high water table unless it's possible to drain the site and thereby get a resultant fall in the level. The site in effect should not have passed the site assessment for this. Failing the drainage option you'll have to istall a raised bed as suggested and install a pump chamber to get your effluent up there.
 
Are you sure the pipe into and out of the tank are not blocked in some way? Might be worth getting some rods from hire shop.
 
New raised percolation area of gravel/topsoil - 1 metre deep min. and use a pump and sump.
 
are you in a low lying area any streams nearby??,again could be a blockage in pipeline to the septic tank from your manhole
 
Check your well to get water table first. Just to confirm this is the problem prior to going to trouble and expense of any other work
 
Dig out a hole right beside the tank 2 or 3 feet deep. Right at the edge, you'll either see loads of water straight away or the hole will fill up very quickly. If it doesn't fill with water that quick say two hours it's probably not your water table being too high.

Water often flows off the (hard)ground into the tank where the lid is not sealed. That is the main concrete lid. This would often be the case where there is nicely cut grass around the tank. A cheap and hopefully quick solution is to dig out all around the lid of the tank and try and seal it (don't know what with), then put in a drainage pipe covered with stone, then you would need a soak hole or better still feed that drainage pipe into your rain water system. Best not to do that if you have persistent water filling the tank as you may polute the rain water system with sewage.
 
Meathman99 said:
Check your well to get water table first. Just to confirm this is the problem prior to going to trouble and expense of any other work
Click to expand...
Who said he had a well or do you just assume that everyone who has a septic tank does not have a piped water supply
 
Approx 1/5 of Ireland's houses are not connected to public water supplies. I think its a fair assumption that most houses that have a septic tank also have a well or access to a well.

But I take your point
 
Meathman99 said:
Approx 1/5 of Ireland's houses are not connected to public water supplies. I think its a fair assumption that most houses that have a septic tank also have a well or access to a well.

But I take your point
Click to expand...

Actually a very very small proportion of houses with septic tanks would have a well. I can only speak for my native county and say that about 5% - 10% would be the figure with a well as their sole source of water supply
 
The point I was trying to make was that prior to jumping into a potentially expensive solution. First find out if what you assumed was the cause of the problem was in fact it. As Davidoco pointed out it is possible that something simple has couased this problem. For the expense of hiring a mini digger or handheld soil auger or looking at a nearby stream or checking a neighbours well or checking the group water supplies well it is possible to confirm that the suspicions of a high water table are correct. It will cost very little to confirm by any of these methods.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top