Our lesson in school today is all about septic tanks. Unlike the public schools, we do not believe in sheltering our children from life in the real world. Even if real life is sometimes a bit messy and smelly...
Yesterday, real life intruded on an already hectic and frustrating day. I'd been suspecting some septic tank issues for a few weeks now, but my concerns were dismissed. After all, what do I know about plumbing and spetic tanks? Besides, hadn't I read all about the proper care and feeding of septic systems over a decade ago, and hadn't I been carefully observing a regimen guarenteeing the best health for our system? And wasn't the fact that our septic tank had not caused us any problems in over a decade proof that my system worked? So why was I worrying?
Somehow there seemed to be a lapse of logic in all that. (Obviously someone has not been attending our logic lessons.) Yesterday, when our toilets steadfastly refused to flush and one rebelliously decided to back up, just to make a point, it became impossible to ignore the obvious truth any longer.
Eleven years is too long to go without servicing one's septic tank, especially in a household of eight people---no matter how large the tank and how diligent the homemaker might be in avoiding bleach, pouring Bac-out down the drain, and trying to keep her septic tank happy.
Once we called the local septic service, we were faced with our next dilemma---where exactly is the tank? We had a general idea, but attempts at probing revealed nothing. The hour grew late. Digging became out of the question.
Early this morning, our hero (in the form of a septic tank guy) arrived at the door, asking us questions about service history and then cheerfully groaning and citing the latest results of an indepth Stanford study (they study septic tanks?!) before setting off in search of our tank. This whole process has fascinated our young scholars, and they are now rapidly becoming experts on all things septic while observing the adventure taking place in the front yard.
In the meantime, I'm busily trying to come up with some sort of unit study...hahaha...
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2 comments:
LOL! Septic learnings...here's what I know: Don't buy a house with a septic tank without doing a full septic inspection.
My parents bought a 4 bedroom house when I was a kid with no inspections. We will skip talking about the roof, and just look at the septic...which was big enough for 2 people. 4 bedroom house. HELLO! We had 4 people living in the house at the time, and it failed about 6 months after we moved in and we had a family of 5 visiting us for a week.
When my husband and I were looking for a house several years back we refused to agree to waive right to do a septic inspection on a house--I wasn't going to repeat my parents' mistake! We began to wonder if the sizeable addition on the back--which needed some major repairs because it wasn't done very well--had been built over the septic tank or field.
My father-in-law decided to set up a separate waste discharge system for the laundry because of the bleach issue. He drilled some holes in barrels, and buried them in the yard, and just the laundry water goes into them. I'm sure this will pass inspection when my husband and I get saddled with the task of selling that house some day! Rrrrriiiggghhhttt.... Oh, and he left an open pit for months on end before he filled it back over and planted new grass. Just the place we wanted our kids to be...
I can relate. We are a homeschooling family of 12 living in a house with a septic tank for 2 people. Needless to say we found out the hard way our first Thanksgiving in the house. The Lord sure has a sense of humor. Makes me thankful when it works! To make a long story short we have a yearly appointment with the sewer sucker (the business name is actually Jason's Sewer Sucking) to clean it out. Your blog is great. My 23 year old son sent it me. I don't know how he found it, but glad he did. I'm thinking of trying my own blog, not sure if I have anything to interesting to say.
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