This one is really off beat, but when something good comes along, it needs to be shared. Many of us have been dealing with rural septic systems and we know it is only a matter of time until the system fails. When it does, it most often is the the drain field that fails. This can cost big bucks plus all the regulations that will kick in. Over the years, I have tried all kinds of things to clean out my drain field and none have done the job. My wife insists on putting down all kinds of magic dust that is supposed to make the bugs eat the stuff, but that does not work either. Now I have found something that does work and it is very simple.
My first tries were to run the garden hose down from the vent pipe at the far end of the drain field. The idea was good, but it did not work. The reason is that the pipe slopes down hill from the solid waste catch tank. When you try to run water back up to flush out the drain field, all that you do is to put more water down at the end. There is no flushing action. Now the idea that works. I have one of those new HVLP paint spray rigs. It means, "low pressure, high volume" paint spray system. It runs with a turbine type compressor that moves a lot of air, but at low pressure. It is not like the old piston compressor that we used to pump up our car tires. It uses a regular garden hose for the air line since it is low pressure. Now what I did was to put the air line down the vent pipe at the end of the drain field. With me so far? The idea was to bubble the air "up hill" thru the drain field pipe back to the holding tank. It worked like a charm. As the air bubbled back to the tank, it pushed much of the water along with precipitate back to the holding tank. It is a little like the old fashion coffee pots or percolators. Because there is so much air coming out of the hose, it really scrubs the inside of the drain pipe and the drain field. Many of the drain holes in the drain field pipe had become plugged over time and the action of the bubbling really cleaned them out. It works.
I have never seen or heard of using one of these turbine type air compressors for this type of thing before and that is why I felt that this was something that needed to be passed along. It could save you several thousands of dollars as compared to having to put in a new drain field. If you think about the concept, I don't see any other way except for using a lot of air that could push the sludge up hill. There is no way to do this with water alone. Just passing on a tip. Once in a while even a blind pig finds an acorn.
PS----
The way that septic systems work is that the first tank operated as an anaerobic digester and the drain field operates as an aerobic digester. Anaerobic means "without oxygen" and aerobic means "with" oxygen. The action of the aerobic system is about 100 times faster than the anaerobic system. That means, the more oxygen or air that you can get into your system, the faster it is able to digest the waste. Since the drain field is aerobic, pumping in air is just what it needs to work faster. One way to get more oxygen into the system is to use one of those "stones" from a big fish aquarium. Even with a very small pump, the stone makes the air bubbles so small that they have many times the surface area of using a garden hose so that you get a lot more oxygen dissolved in the waste water.
If you look at a big public sewer system, you will see what looks like water being pumped into the center of the holding pools. What you are actually seeing is air being pumped in just like in a fish farm or an aquarium.
PS----
I have a CX-7 Turbine paint compressor made by Croix, but I think you could rent one. The outlet hose is a regular garden hose. Push the garden hose as far down the vent pipe in your drain field as you can and turn the thing on for about an hour. If you rent the thing for a day, turn it off and on about every 15 minutes and let the line refill for about 5 minutes before turning it on again. This action will flush most of the precipitate back to the holding tank. As a long term solution buy an aquarium air pump with capacity of at least 50 gallons along with a difuser stone of appropriate size. Put this down the vent pipe as far as it will go and turn it on. You may need a long extension cord, but the thing does not use 25 cents a day in electricity. The air will assure that you have an active arobic digester in the drain field. After a couple of months, your system will be as good as new.
