Got any tips, trcks, secrets for finding the septic?

[300UGUY]

Before walking around like a Zombie looking for it you should narrow it down to a couple of factors,
1- Does your house have a Well? if so! the septic tank and field are usually located on the other side of the house, trying to keep as much distance between the two,

2- How old is the house? a modern septic system being built in the last 20 years or so will have put the clean-out outside the foundation of the house by 1 to 3 ft, it could have easily been cover by a few inches of landscape materials, As had been mentioned look for the 4" line going through the foundation, either look under the crawl space or basement, it will be obvious as to where the pipe goes through, perhaps take some approx measurements from near the closest corner,

3- if the house is built on a cement slab you might notice the bath, kitchen, laundry arrangements, usually planed to keep them in line with each other and to an exterior wall, If your house has one bathroom its usually located just outside that exterior wall,

4- an older house may not have an outdoor clean-out, It will be somewhere under the house crawl space,
in any case the septic tank could be between 15 - 25 ft of the house, depending of the size and slope of the lot,

5- the septic fields will have dark green and thicker grass and may have sunken a little more than the rest of the grade, If you can see them you can fallow one back toward the house and locate the take approximate location,

Good advice.

 

[mangus580]

My method was really simple!

When we bought our house, they inspected the system, declared it unfit, and the previous owners had to provide funds for its replacement.

I got to essentially work hand in hand with the installer when he put in the entire system. I know exactly where it all is!

Whats really nice, is he took one look at me & my toys, and used the inverted V type leach bed system, that can support somewhere around 20k PSI as long as its buried to a certain depth. I dont have to worry about damaging a line!

My tank is up close to the house, and without paying attention, when I built a storage shed off the back wall, the corner of the shed, is lined right up with the ingoing cleanout to the tank. Makes it really easy to locate.


Another trick I started..... Is I take a black marker, and write the pump out date right on the outgoing pipe in the basement. Makes it nice and easy to keep a running record of when it was last pumped.

 

[MossRoad]

Remember to store the Big Book in a place where it can be found!

A temperature sensor may work???

You know one of those infrared thermometers probably would. Good suggestion.

 

[dex3361]

You know one of those infrared thermometers probably would. Good suggestion.

If you try with an IR gun cut the grass as low as possible so ou are measuring the temp difference in temp of the ground and not the grass. I used a IR camera at one time and had good results after cutting the grass low.

 

[DFB]

When your tractor falls into a smelly hole...you found your septic tank.

I see that happen the first place I lived years ago the owners of the building constantly parked on top of the buried tank until one day the lid collapsed! :thumbsup:

 

[sdkubota]

As an engineer who often deals with municipalities who have a guy that can locate whatever underground with wires...it doesn't work. It is entertaining but that is about the extent of it. Usually they have some idea and the wires will show that belief. But when the crap hits the fan and a backhoe is digging its well I thought...

 

[Dr Dave]

Back when I bought my home, I went to the rental store to get a metal detector, he laughed and said, I have what you need. He came from the back room with a small square box in a leather case with a leather strap. Flipped open a cover and it looked like a compass with no markings, the instruction sheet said to hold over the ground and walk, when the needle moves, you found something. I found my water line, electric and gas went out front and found the septic line, traced it to the tank. It took about 15 min. The minerals in the water triggered it even when I went to the plastic drain feild. I dont remember what it was called, Magic box? Maybe someone on here knows about these?

Dave

 

[Dr Dave]

Northern Tools has something that funtions like the magic box, only $21.95

Dave

 

[MossflowerWoods]

WOW, thatsalotta advice!

#1 - I have a Basement. (I have a functioning toilet and stubs to make a bathroom in the basement).

Therefore, the cleanout is inside the basement (next to the TV...) Pic 1

So that means the pipe goes out UNDER the basement floor. I went outside, and it goes under a concrete pad with the Heat Pump compresor, etc and out into the yard.

#2 - I have A LOT OF SLOPE...
Pic 2 shows from the edge of the pad out to the back yard (Well is uphill and in the front yard). This is the North side, and nothing melts fast here, plus thare is no snow at the moment... also I have patchy color in my grass regardless. I do see a possible depression where a plant is growing (pic 3), plus in the center fo pic 3 you can see the 3 bricks supposedly marking the septic.

Sooooo... Whatcha Think? Can YOU see it?

Thanks to all thus far for all the great advice.
Be well,
David

 

[bcp]

Drive around a bit.



http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/241442-septic-tank-cover-repair.html

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, I see it. It's under those bricks you put on it so you wouldn't forget where it was! :laughing:

 

[boggen]

caution use of some metal pipe / rebar done together to form a T and go out poking around. if ya go to far down and actually hit a pipe instead of the tank. you may be digging up a pipe to repair it.

with above said, "poo rolls down hill" and never up hill.

septic fields will be above the "lake / pond" in the background that i see. and septic fields normally show a different color of grass or snow melts quicker above them

septic tank, will be between pipe going out of your basement, and the leach field.


with above said, not sure if that "patch" might qualify as a leach field. due to the patch starts up fairly high it looks like and runs down hill.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

In my experience, horses don't like to walk over septic tanks, they can sense the hollow sound and feel. Same theory as a cattle guard.

Try walking a horse around your property and see if it reacts to a certain spot. We could ride the horses up to the edge of the septic tank and they would hesitate. If you spurred them, they would jump over the tank. Otherwise they would go around.

 

[deepNdirt]

There is one other way to find it, a few months ago my rental house had a clogged drain somewhere and was backing up into the house, I got one of this deals that goes on the end of a water hose, it is made of rubber, you then feed it down through the house vent stack as far as it will go and turn the water on full force, this device starts swelling up forming a tight seal around itself, and then the pressure blast though what ever blockage it come upon, you keep feeding it into the drain,
Unfortunately the clog was not in the house drain system, what I did next was to remove the clean-out from under the house ( crawl space ) and feed it in there it went about 8 ft. and stopped I pulled back and measure the the hose length to where it had stopped, I once again feed it back through, leaving the water on to the hose I went back around to where I knew the drain line was at and noted a strange sound coming from the ground, It sound like a very loud Bull-frog croaking, I dug down 3 ft at where I thought I heard the sound and Bingo there it was exactly, It turns out the 40+ year old drain line had collapsed under ground,............ But if not for this device making a loud enough noise I may have been digging all over the place, Oh! I didn't mention this was to the city sewage system,
everybody should have one of these,

 

[MossflowerWoods]

septic fields will be above the "lake / pond" in the background that i see. and septic fields normally show a different color of grass or snow melts quicker above them

septic tank, will be between pipe going out of your basement, and the leach field.


with above said, not sure if that "patch" might qualify as a leach field. due to the patch starts up fairly high it looks like and runs down hill.

I'm thinking the "patch" of green with the depression in it might be the Tank location... It is roughly in a straight line from the house where the pipe exits...

I need to go take another picture of where I think the leach field might be... it is to the left and downhill from the 3rd picture. I seem to recall she said 5 lines?

David

 

[J_J]

There are people that swear that they can find septic tanks, water lines, and other things using some bent coat hangers or apple sticks held a certain way. .

But I would not hold your breath for the to find it.

They say you just gotta believe.

 

[dodge man]

Back when I bought my home, I went to the rental store to get a metal detector, he laughed and said, I have what you need. He came from the back room with a small square box in a leather case with a leather strap. Flipped open a cover and it looked like a compass with no markings, the instruction sheet said to hold over the ground and walk, when the needle moves, you found something. I found my water line, electric and gas went out front and found the septic line, traced it to the tank. It took about 15 min. The minerals in the water triggered it even when I went to the plastic drain feild. I dont remember what it was called, Magic box? Maybe someone on here knows about these?

Dave

These area called "dip needles". Land surveyors used them to find metal property corners before they had invented metal detectors. The are basically just a compass and when you pass the box over something metal, the needle flips around or "dips". They do work, but my experience is you have to get really close to find a property corner with it, and then you have to hold it close to the ground. I wouldn't think they would work finding water in lines unless the lines were some kind of metal.

 

[Ed of all trades]

My neighbor has a problem with his drain field leaking out of the ground at one spot and has had a hard time finding the tank and junction boxes (2) even with the map made by the contractor. found one box, the measurements were 8' off and he has yet to find the other. The one tank was at least 3'6" in the ground. I hope he soon finds a way to get it fixed.

 

[turnkey4099]

Divining rods. They work for me. I could find the lines, but probably couldn't distinguish the tank from the lines.

My rods work rather oddly. They track the input pipe but won't read the tank for some reason.

Yes, I know, "divining does not work".

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

if you or a friend has a metal detector start waveing it at where the soil pipe leaves the house you will notice a pattern as it passes over the pipe follow that pattern untill it gives a blank hum there is your tank. Now keep waveing accross the hum untill you find the effluent pipe, (usually 6 feet across from where the soil pipe enters the tank) follow that along to your weeping bed. From there your weeping bed should take 50 feet at 90 dec. on either side for a streight bed .

The metal detector will work only if the soil pipe is cast iron. I don't think there has been a septic system installed using anything but plastic in the past 40 years. Even my old, old house had "orangeburg" for the tank outflos (collapsed/rotted of course).

Harry K