The Joys of Home Ownership–The Septic Tank

A post from Kelli-

We bought our farm at the end of December. If you have been in Iowa at the end of December, you will find that digging up a septic tank is not going to happen, so we had to file some kind of an extension that would allow us to updated the septic system and have it up to code within 6 months.

One afternoon while doing homework, a big semi pulled in with an excavator and started digging in my yard. While I wasn’t expecting it, I was glad to get the process going.

They started by digging around to find the current tank. They ended up having to pull out some of the landscaping that the house came with, but I knew it was probably going to have to be taken out, so I hadn’t done anything with it this spring. Once they finally got it located, they did a bit more poking around and found out that it was only a 1000 gallon tank. Apparently, current code requires atleast 1250 gallons.

The county supervisor came out the next day and it was decided that a second 750 tank would be piggybacked onto the current one to bring it up to code. They also had to put in a new leachfield to ensure that the system as a whole properly functions.

Getting the new tank in, consisted of diggin up most of my lawn in front of my house. On the right side, you can see a little gray spot and that’s where both of the new tops are. They have to be at ground level so that they can be easily accessed when necessary. I’m thinking that next summer I’m going to landscape it a bit to add a flag pole and Jason has an antique school or church bell that he wants to put there too. With a few flowers, I think that it will be very nice.

This picture is showing them putting int he new leachfield. This is where the previous garden was. Because of the involvement with the sewer system, we won’t be able to plant a garden there in the future, but we have a fairly large yard in a few different areas, so I’m sure that we can find space elsewhere too.

Now we have to just leave the new leachfield for a year to let it settle and sit. There are some big lumps and bumps out there that will need to be evened out a bit, but then we’ll have to level it out, seed it down, and we a person shouldn’t be able to tell its even there.

I’m glad that we’ve been able to check this off of the list of things to do after we moved in…now if I could just get the upstairs hallway and stairs painted….UGH!