Fun with sewage

Yeah! Septic systems. Everyone's favorite subject. The town sure thinks so. You need three permits out here to build your house: one for your house, one for your well, and one for your septic system and tile bed. The town inspector needs to make a special trip just to check the tilebed before it is buried. I guess they don't want your toilet water ending up in the neighbors well.

The first thing done on the house was to do a percolation test where an engineer digs a hole, fills it with water, and calculates how quickly the water disappears. It should disappear quickly, because you don't want liquid manure pooling and stinking up your yard. That gets you your permit.

Image 1 shows the first layer of coarse sand layed after the bulldozer removes the soil and tree roots. After that, add a layer of clear 3/4'' gravel (Image 2). Then, lay down the weeping tile (Image 3). Then, wait for the inspector to check the work, and bury with one layer of crushed stone, more sand, and cover with soil.

The weeping tile is actually the perforated plastic pipes shown here. The liquid fecal matter overflows in the septic tank, flows downhill, and is spread evenly over the bed shown here. The sand and gravel filter out all the crap (literally).

Mmmm. Lunch anyone?