Fun new house, septic, & garage stuff.

[OldSchoolSS]

Hey guys,

So I'm going to be closing on a house in two weeks here(knock on wood). One thing I need to get completed is getting a new septic system installed. I met out at the property with the installer last night and he took some elevations. The pipe comes out where the old holding tank is, I guess there is just barely enough drop on the property to run the drainage pipe using gravity only, so that's good i guess. The bad is he doesn't think he can get a full foot of gravel under the drainage trenches. Code is only 6" but he always recommends a foot. The other bad is it looks like due to where the soil tests were originally done, the setbacks on the septic, and the garage I can't really put the septic in the back corner like I was hoping. Well I can but then the back wall of the garage would be even with front of the house taking all those into consideration which I think will look kind of goofy.

Anyways... Just about wherever I put it the drainage pipe will have to run under the driveway. He talked about putting insulation down over the whole run so freezing shouldn't be a problem. I guess I'm worried about the possibility of that pipe collapsing under the load of a delivery truck or if I had a dump truck drop off a load of landscaping stone. Does anybody have experience with running those pipes under the driveway?

Below is a picture of the lot layout. At first I was thinking of having the garage perpendicular to the end of the house (garage doors facing house). But If at some point in time I could buy some land off of the neighbors it might be nicer to have the doors facing the street on the other side of the driveway. I'm not set on the size yet. I currently have 13 cars(mostly projects), but I want to get that down to a more manageable number.

Anybody have any similar layouts on here that might be able to offer some recommendations?

Thanks,

OldSchoolSS

 

[Mattlt]

Maybe you can change the height that the pipe comes out of the house? Raise it up somewhat... I had to do this with my house. The pipe leaving the house is about 3' off the basement floor. All upstairs drains via gravity, while the basement drains run into a sump and are pumped up into the drain line.

I would avoid running the drain line under the driveway. Depending on where you are located (how cold it gets?) freezing could be a real problem. The lack of snow cover on the driveway causes the cold to go down deeper.

Get opinions/bids from multiple septic contractors. Make sure they are familiar with the septic laws for your location. In my part of MN they are pretty fussy.

 

[noslo04]

Steel casing pipe for the portion of the discharge line running under the driveway.

 

[tcianci]

Where do you live? Is your location subject to strong hard frosts and extreme winters? Remember that the pipe only has water in it when there is an outflow from the house. Lots of septic or sewer outflow pipes are only slightly below grade. Where on the plan is your new septic tank going to be located? This additional information will be helpful in getting good advice.

 

[OldSchoolSS]

There is room to raise the height of the pipe coming out of the wall. The only issue there is the foundation walls are 24" thick and made out of field stone so it's not the easiest to put a nice hole in.

The holding tanks will be going between the garage and the lot line (upper right hand corner of the house). And we get some pretty good hard frosts, last winter we had a week of -10 degree temperatures.

I'm thinking I might bite the bullet and get a new soil test done an tuck the drainage field right against the rear lot line. That will give an extra 16' to tuck the garage back from the road and also I can have them dig deeper so I don't have to mess with the plumbing in the house. I'm going to meet with the neighbor tomorrow morning before work to see if I can get a good measurement on the rear lot line. I have the feeling the plot I posted isn't very accurate.

 

[uhcrandy]

There is a new product that looks like a plastic tent, that goes over the discharge pipe. This allow you to discharge onto undistubed soil. Talk to a plumbing supplier in your area. I can rememeber the produst name. The cost of the product is recovered by not needing as much excavation and gravel fill.

 

[twostory]

There is a new product that looks like a plastic tent, that goes over the discharge pipe. This allow you to discharge onto undistubed soil. Talk to a plumbing supplier in your area. I can rememeber the produst name. The cost of the product is recovered by not needing as much excavation and gravel fill.

"Infiltrator" is one brand of this half pipe. It is a great solutions, you need less field line, since the half pipe is 30 inches wide.

http://www.infiltratorsystems.com/productline/quick4_infiltrator.asp

 

[sneezer41]

you can also pump out of the tank into the leach field. You may have to put a pump in every 10 years or so, but it makes your leach field last longer by fully dosing the entire leach field instead of just dribbling out and over using the first part of the trench

 

[King Me IRL]

There is a new product that looks like a plastic tent, that goes over the discharge pipe. This allow you to discharge onto undistubed soil. Talk to a plumbing supplier in your area. I can rememeber the produst name. The cost of the product is recovered by not needing as much excavation and gravel fill.

We just installed one of these systems last week! man was it easy! no gravel, and there is no pipe inside the "tent". Just run a pipe to the panels, the panels lock together. You need a lot less actual footage with this system than convention gravel fields, and they are maintainable. If that section (you can have different sections) fills up, you can get a pump truck to make it new again. It is a much better system and from my POV much easier to install. Not sure of the price difference though.

 

[OldSchoolSS]

Thanks for the input guys. We're going to put the septic in the upper corner and be able to get 12 of gravel under it since we're reducing the length of pipe to the field. It won't be as close to the lot line as I'd like but I don't want to take a chance of not having the sale go through due to taking too long for all the new soil tests and permits.

Those new options look interesting, but I'm going to stick with the tried and true method for the leach field. Not sure what I'll do with the garage placement yet.