Taking Care of Number One and Number Two

It all started when I insisted that we have our septic tank pumped. As it turns out we were overdue for a cleaning, but the bigger problem was our completely deteriorated baffle pipe. The baffle pipe is what prevents the solid wastes from getting out of the tank and clogging up your fields, while still allowing the liquid waste to trickle out into the fields, so that the proper level of liquid remains in the tank.

When our septic technician attempted to install a new baffle pipe, he discovered that the pipe that exists the tank and runs out to the fields was shatter. He was able to pull a section of this broken pipe out, and collected on it was what appeared to be a plastic wrapper, pieces of rubber tubing, as well as some of the other solid wastes you would expect to find in a septic tank. The scary part is that the baffle pipe has been disintegrated for many years, so we're fortunate that we haven't had field problems due to the solid wastes leaving the tank.

To put it in perspective, replacing the baffle pipe and a few feet of the exit pipe cost us about $40. If we hadn't discovered this issue until there was a major problem, then we'd be adding a couple of zeros to that total.

The septic technician talked us through how to find the broken pipe, what supplies to purchase, and how to retrofit the new to the old. After he left, we started digging, but it was not looking, so we called in for reinforcements.

Enter mini excavator...

To make sure that we did not break any more pipe than was already destroyed, Andrew hand dug the rest of way around the pipe.

Once we found where the undamaged pipe started again, Andrew cut off the split section of pipe.

After a few more minutes of prepping, Andrew attached the new section of pipe using a flexible coupler. This was the recommended method from the septic technician.

There's a gap in the photo time line at this point because the photographer, who is also the assistant septic repair girl, had to put her camera down and help glue the new baffle pipe together and then install it inside the tank.

So now we jump ahead to the completed repair and filling the big hole in our driveway.

The moral to this story is that you should have your septic tank pumped and inspected on a regular basis so that you can tackle any issues before they become major problems.