Poop on a stick is never a good thing

So Larry the septic guy and his side kick showed up six hours late, but at this point I was just happy to see them. He was unable to locate the third tank on the septic as well, but using an electronic tracker he gave me a general Idea. Of course this could not be good news. It meant having to remove a large portion of the deck and digging down four feet, in a "general area" to find the top of the 800 gallon tank.
So Megan came over and helped me dig. Here is the photo when we got started.
Because they were so late they were not going to be able to find the drain field and put in the lateral upturns and monitoring points. Using a type of stick he poked holes in the yard where he believed the drain field to be.... when he lifted it out, you guessed it, brown liquid. Not the good kind.
He poked holes all around and 6 out of 8 had the liquid.
"I'm not gonna lie to ya" he said, "poop on the stick is never a good thing."
There was nothing more they could do for me that day, I was to call them when I had found the lid and go from there.
So for day's and day's I dug.
Here is my progression.
Hey look, there is the sprinkler system. What's that doing under the deck? (maybe if I got a permit I would have known it was there?)

See the hole on the right? That is where I asked my husband to dig after spending all day in the trenches with six kids running around. I decided to take them out for a bit so my DH could dig in peace, when I got back, he had dug the hole on the left. WHY you ask, yeah, me too.
Man that's a big hole. On my final day of digging I found the tank, I followed it around to the middle where the access hole should be, and voila, there it was on the right, My back aches, my yard looks like , well you know, and I lost a huge portion of my deck. All this has successfully kept a septic failure out of my mind. I know I am in denial because while digging and entertaining 6 kids, I did 6 loads of laundry, ran the dishwasher and allowed three of the kids to take a shower. I am a bad person!
Now it's back in Larry's hands. He should be here Monday to search and identify the lateral upturns, and then we will know what comes next.
Being about 18 months away from getting onto the City's sewer system, I sure hope we don't have to install a brand new septic system.....
Stay tuned

Comments

[tiennie]

Oh gross. That's all I have to say.