Septic tank piping failure diagnosis & repair guide InspectAPedia® -
Chapter 4-2 Diagnosis & Repair of Clogged Septic or Sewer Piping
Advice for buyers of a home with a septic system - what to do
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This chapter discusses how to diagnose and repair clogged septic systems or piping.
Septic backups, failures, breakouts, odors:
This document provides advice for home buyers who are buying a home with a private septic system:
homes using a septic tank and drainfield or similar soil absorption system.
Chapter 4 in this file outlines what goes wrong with septic systems and their various components.
Chapter 5-recommends and describes septic inspection
and test methods in more detail, explains how to be sure your septic inspection and septic test are conducted properly,
tells you where to get more septic system information about a given property,
and warns of unsanitary or dangerous site conditions.
Septic Main Drain or Municipal Sewer Piping Failures
Distribution piping connects the house drain to the septic tank, running between the building and the tank inlet.
More distribution piping connects the septic tank outlet to the distribution box and from there to the leach field.
Distribution pipes can settle (especially in new construction), break, become blocked or clogged, or become invaded and blocked by tree roots or soils
as shown in the first photo above.
Clay pipes
also break and have a tendency to become blocked by tree roots at their joints as happened here.
Older
"orangeburg" pipes which look like black asphalt-soaked cardboard (they are) crush and deteriorate with age.
You won't know what kind of piping
is installed until it is excavated, but the age of the property may be a clue.
Homes built from the 1970's on, certainly
from the 1980's on, use cast iron or more often plastic ABS or PVC piping for these connections, as shown in the
second photo above where we were replacing a root and mud-clogged clay sewer line with a new plastic line.
See "Drain Line Replacement diagnosing a clogged drain leads to drain line replacement"
for a step by step photo-illustrated guide to diagnosing failed septic piping (or sewer line) and the subsequent drain replacement procedure.
Septic Distribution Boxes
Distribution boxes serve as a connection point to distribute effluent which arrives from the
septic tank outlet and is to be sent into two or more individual leach field lines. Distribution boxes
("D-Boxes") can settle or tip.
A damaged or tipped D-box will fail to divert effluent uniformly among the
effluent receiving drainfield lines, causing flooding of one leach line. If you see depressions suggesting that there
are four leach lines at the property and the end of just one of them is producing wet soil or surface-breakout
of effluent, we'd suspect a tipped D-box. (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)
Septic Drainfield Distribution Piping
Drainfield piping is usually constructed of perforated pipe buried in gravel-filled trenches. It receives
effluent from the D-box and allows it to percolate or
seep into the soil around the trench where added filtering and
bacterial treatment occur. Like the distribution piping discussed above, individual drainfield pipes can become crushed,
shifted, or clogged by tree roots or other debris. More general clogging and failure of the leach field is discussed below. A broken or clogged pipe, once it
has been located, may be
much less costly to repair than a complete leach field replacement, so this possibility needs to be
considered during diagnosis of a "failed" septic system.
We have more to say about septic distribution piping failures in the next section 4-3 where we
discuss Leach Field Failures.
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Original Source Credits
Portions of the original text were provided by the CT Department of Public Health and Addiction Services. Daniel Friedman (web author) has made
extensive edits and content additions to the original file.
More Information on Building Diagnostic Inspections and Repairs
SEPTIC FAILIURE CAUSES in our Online Septic Book - Details Address: How Does Each Septic System Component Fail? - What to Look For During a Septic Inspection - Step by Step Diagnosis
Sewer Line Replacement diagnosing a clogged drain leads to drain line replacement - step by step photo-illustrated guide to drain replacement
Table of Required Septic Tank Sizes: Septic Tank Capacity vs Usage in Daily Gallons of Wastewater Flow & How to Calculate the Size (in gallons) of a Septic Tank.
InspectAPedia® Home & Site Map - Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, Repair, & Problem Prevention Advice: In-depth research & advice on diagnosing, testing, correcting, & preventing building defects & indoor environmental hazards. Unbiased information, no conflicts of interest.
The Mold Information Center: What to Do About Mold in Buildings, When and How to Inspect for Mold, Clean Up Mold, or Avoid Mold Problems
Environmental Inspection, Testing, & Diagnosis On-Site IAQ, Gas, Air Testing, Mold Investigation, Sick Building Diagnosis, Lab Services, & Remediation Plan Preparation - indoor air quality testing, problem source determination, supporting lab work, written remediation plan addressing removal of environmental and other hazards and prevention of their recurrence.
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