When A-1 Septic came out, the man found out our ancient metal tank had rusted almost through. Luckily our vehicle normally parked in the garage hadn’t fallen through. We needed a new septic tank.
A previous owner of our house built a garage over the old one. This is not a good arrangement so the new one would be put in the front yard.
My goats were not impressed when the backhoe, the Bobcat, the big trucks and several men arrived at milking time. They got milked anyway.
Setting Up For the New Septic Tank
In the meantime the backhoe had dug a big hole. The new septic tank holds 500 gallons of waste and is four feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep. It needed to be a foot underground.
The old tank was crushed. A thick layer of gravel cushioned the new pipe going across to the old pipe and out of the garage. More gravel went on top of the new pipe.
Once the tank was in place and the pipes connected, a new problem arose. In order for the new septic tank to settle correctly, it needs to be at least half full of water. We have no hose.
Problem?
We do have rain barrels. The rain barrels have tadpoles in them. I grabbed my fish net and started moving tadpoles out to only one barrel.
A small pump moved the water into the new septic tank. We ended up with one barrel of water to hold my plants over until rain could fill the now empty barrels back up.
Now the pile of dirt started going places. Some went back on top of the new septic tank. Some went into the garage to fill in that hole. The rest is sitting in front of my vegetable garden to fill containers and raised beds once the rocks are removed and compost is mixed in.
Surprisingly, this whole operation only took a couple of hours. It’s a nice feeling to have this potential disaster averted.
