The Rains have returned

Well, the rains have returned.  Not a all to welcome sight in my industry.  It’s hard enough to perform this job, but when all of your tools are soaked and you have too suit up and heavy rain-gear.  It makes it even more exciting.

Now, I am just stating this, well, because I hear it all the time.  When it rains, my septic runs super slow, or not at all.   Septic systems are to be sealed systems.  If the correct system was installed for your lot, then this should hardly be an issue.  Your tanks should be sealed from all ground water.  That’s just gross if it’s not.

So far this rainy season we have had two nightmare jobs, where groundwater infiltration has caused failure.  Homeowner thought all was lost and my competitor me out for backup.  Homeowner had water coming up out of the tanks, and the pumps just simply, could not keep up.

This is where First Call Septic comes in.  We have chosen to purchase the state-of-the-art tools to help me in diagnosing the problems of groundwater infiltration.  In this case we ran tests for Dissolved Oxygen.  Or DO for short.  See, in order for something to be septic, it has to be void of Oxygen.  So in the tests I run, I should always get a DO reading of zero.  Or no oxygen in the septic tanks water.  But if I ever get DO of 4 or higher in some of the tanks, then great.  We found the source of the leak and time to excavate and reseal.

In this case we had a DO of 7 in the pump chamber and zero in the septic tank.  So I knew we had a leak in the transport line between septic tank and pump tank.  It was about 2 hours of labor excavating the pipe and resealing it.  But once it was done, their little, “when it rains our septic runs slow” nightmare was over.

This is a very important test when diagnosing a septic system.  Especially if it’s “failed.”  PH is another test, but that’s for another time.  I need to goto bed.

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie