Home Buyer's Guide to Septic Drainfield Failures InspectAPedia® -
Chapter 4-3 Diagnosing and Repairing Septic Drain Field Failures
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 Septic Drain Field Failures. 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.
4-3 LEACH FIELD FAILURES - Septic Leach Field Failures
Building on the leach field: A leach field can be destroyed by other site "improvements" such as this attempt to install a swimming pool
atop the leaching area in the photo shown at left.
This mistaken installation involved multiple errors:
placing a pool atop the leaching area which prevents
proper oxygenation and evaporation, driving over the leach field which risks damaging buried pipes and compacting the soil, and excavating to
remove a portion of the absorption system soil to put in the swimming pool.
The gray water you see next to the swimming pool in
this larger photo was effluent from the failed septic fields.
Compacted soils due to parking or driving on the septic drainfield: driving over the leach field in any vehicle larger than a child's bicycle is a bad idea. Heavy vehicles
may actually crush buried leach field lines, or they may compress the soils around the leach field, either of which leads to failure.
Driving
on or parking on leach fields will destroy them. This property actually had no working septic system at all - 100% of its effluent was
coming to the surface nearby, brought out by solid rock covered with shallow soils, and running down a steep hill into a local stream.
Paving over the leach field: a leach field cannot function properly if it is paved-over. Some folks may try this as a way
to permit parking over the absorption system. B
ut paving prevents both evaporation of effluent (a portion of the effluent disposal
method) and it prevents oxygen from reaching the soil, thus inhibiting proper bacterial action needed to treat the effluent.
Clogged soils:
The sketch shows a conventional drainfield trench in cross section. As the drainfield line ages the soils become clogged
around the distribution piping, starting first at the end closest to the septic tank or distribution box.
Eventually
soils around the entire line are clogged with a thick biomat, or perhaps worse, by grease or salts that should have
stayed in the septic tank. At this point the soil absorption system stops absorbing effluent.
The soils around the leaching bed trenches have become clogged and
stop passing effluent. Sending grease and floating solids into the leach field hastens this failure.
The biomat which forms below the leaching beds will eventually also become too solid and impacted, stopping soil absorption.
In this leach field photo effluent was appearing in the light colored
area where the homeowner had begun some exploratory digging in a soggy spot only to see her hole fill up rapidly with effluent.
In the building drains become sluggish, stop, or back up into the building (unsanitary), or effluent may appear
on the property surface when the absorption system can no longer function or where a pipe has become damaged.
Some septic system repairs are comparatively modest, such as replacing covers or baffles. Replacing septic
tanks or leach fields is costly. No leach field has an infinite life, but proper septic system maintenance
can defer this cost. Because costly septic system repairs may be upcoming, buyers of properties with a
septic system are advised to inspect and test the system before purchase.
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More Information on Building Diagnostic Inspections and Repairs
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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
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.
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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
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