Garbage disposal/ septic question

[/pine]

I would have thought most here would "recycle" and have compost piles for their organic wet garbage?

 

[jinman]

We have an aerobic septic system and we don't put any of our laundry water into it. It just doesn't make sense. However, I have used a garbage disposal with our system for over 8 years. My aerobic contractor always tells me there is very little sludge in my raw sewage tank and my filter tank is the cleanest of all the 200+ systems he services. I have never had the system pumped and I don't worry a bit about using our disposal. There are just two of us and when I peel cantaloupe or something similar, I don't put that down the disposal. It goes into the trash. Mostly what goes into the disposal is meal scraps before putting the dishes into the dishwasher. I can only say that an aerobic system is so much like a city's sewage treatment that it is not affected by disposer solids. Oh yes. . . NO GREASE! We wipe all greasy or oily pans with paper towels and put that into the trash. Grease is the enemy of all sewer systems, even in the city.

 

[dawzie]

Just me and the wife here. I also separated the washing machine water from the septic system and it goes into the field also.
I'm trying to be careful about how we use our system because the septic system regulations have recently changed around here and a replacement system would cost me $22,000-$25,000. Ouch!
-Len

The washer really should be going into the septic. Its really amazing how a "system" ends up cleaning the water as it goes back into the ground so we can use it again.

 

[dawzie]

We have an aerobic septic system and we don't put any of our laundry water into it. It just doesn't make sense. However, I have used a garbage disposal with our system for over 8 years. My aerobic contractor always tells me there is very little sludge in my raw sewage tank and my filter tank is the cleanest of all the 200+ systems he services. I have never had the system pumped and I don't worry a bit about using our disposal. There are just two of us

jinman - a couple of questions, is there a tank before the aerobic unit?? where is the filter tank located with-in the system?? what type of filter? what brand is the aerobic unit?

 

[Bird]

We have an aerobic septic system and we don't put any of our laundry water into it. It just doesn't make sense. However, I have used a garbage disposal with our system for over 8 years.

Jim, we had an aerobic system installed in 1997 and in just about four and a half years, it needed pumping, and was pumped of course. But we did run the laundry water into it; just avoided using bleach in the washing machine. As to why it needed pumping when yours doesn't, I don't know for sure. Just two of us living there, but we had a lot of company, and I know we let too much grease get into it, so I suspect that was a major factor.

 

[jinman]

jinman - a couple of questions, is there a tank before the aerobic unit?? where is the filter tank located with-in the system?? what type of filter? what brand is the aerobic unit?

It's a Norweco Singulair.

Norweco Brochure

 

[dawzie]

Jim, we had an aerobic system installed in 1997 and in just about four and a half years, it needed pumping, and was pumped of course. But we did run the laundry water into it; just avoided using bleach in the washing machine. As to why it needed pumping when yours doesn't, I don't know for sure. Just two of us living there, but we had a lot of company, and I know we let too much grease get into it, so I suspect that was a major factor.

Bird, could be he has a tank before the aerobic unit, I'm assuming you dont

 

[Bird]

Bird, could be he has a tank before the aerobic unit, I'm assuming you dont

No, we did have. Ours was a Hydro-Action and the newer ones are considerably different in some ways, such as all being one unit now, like Jim's link shows. Toward the middle of the page in my link, Hydro-Action shows the "Set-N-Go" and that's close to what we had. The difference was that it was all separate components. The pre-treatment waste tank and the pump/dosing tank were each 700 gallon concrete "septic tanks" while the center tank with the aerobic treatment unit (and filter) was an 800 or 850 gallon fiberglass tank. And the air pump was about 6' or 8' away with pvc line carrying the air to the treatment tank.

 

[charlz]

We also have an aeroebic system (Bio-Microbics), food disposal and water softener. House was built in 2000, I bought in 2004 and I had it pumped in 2005 at the advice of the system maintenance company (has to be tested once or twice a year for water quality).

The pump out guy was very surprised at how little odor and sludge there was, first time he had seen one of these systems. There was a 2 inch or more crust on it though. We only use the food disposal for things that end up in the sink, vegetable peelings etc. either go in the compost pile or the trash. Water softener goes in there as well. We did recently buy front loader washer/dryer which uses a lot less water which I like as my wife does a ton of laundry.

The one downside is apparently this is an early model and they did not put a clean out port on the back half. According to the maintainer the 'bio reactor' part (or whatever they call it) should be pulled out of the back half and both sides pumped to ensure there is no sludge. I already had the pumper guy here before we discovered this. (The current maintainer is not the same guy who put this system in, the company changed hands). Next pump out I will have them come out and do that before the pumper shows up.

 

[MarkV]

dawzie, you have me interested in the septic additives like Rid-x. I have never used anything after reading a study, I believe, done by UNC that claimed additives offered no value in a properly installed system. As I recall the university offered the manufactures of the leading additives an opportunity to back up their impressive claims and none of them responded. In all fairness this was years ago and the additive technology may well have improved over the years.

So dawzie it sounds as if you have looked into more septics than I ever want to and seem to believe in additives. Do you see an actual difference between systems that use additives and those that don't or think of it as cheap insurance so why not?

Thanks,
MarkV