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

[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