MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Apologies for talking shit, but I've got a drainage problem.
The pump that feeds water from our septic tank into the finger drains failed the other day. I got the tank drained down and it looks like sludge has over flowed into the water tank and been sucked through the pump into the finger drain/ soak away.
The bloke who emptied the tank says it looks like the people who did it last time (when we moved in a year ago) didn't do a very thorough job - hence the failure. He has offered to try jetting the finger drains, but can't guarantee that it will clear them. He says our only other options are to either replace the current soak away system or have a new pit dug. Both very expensive and disruptive.
Can someone with some experience of this tell me whether this all sounds about right? The bloke sounded very plausible and showed me the problems. Cheers.
I'm certainly no expert but it sounds about right. If the drains become fouled they can't operate as they should - I think this shows up as the soakaway area being wetter than before.
New soakaway is the solution as far as I'm aware.
This is just based on what I've been told by my builder FIL and architect dad about 10 years ago so absolutely not gospel
I would be tempted to try the jetting as its far cheaper than a new soakaway system. Might not work, and if it doesn't then it will only make a big bill for a new soakaway system slightly bigger.
I'm also not sure how big your tank is, but if it is sized properly for your house, then a once a year pump out should be fine. Did you organise the last pump-out or did the vendors tell you they had it done? Just saying as it is sort of pointless getting a little bit pumped out.
Thanks guys. We had it emptied when we moved in, but I didn't supervise, and I think it might have just been a quick pipe down the hole job.