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Oh, am I glad you're here today. Guess what I discovered? I found a septic system that's being
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installed and you know what? They haven't covered it over with dirt yet. The inspector's coming
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tomorrow, so it's a great opportunity for me to show you the basic components of a septic system
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The septic system consists of the septic tank, the distribution box, and the leach field. This
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This is the actual septic tank. It's a precast concrete structure that a crane actually lifts into position
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And this particular one is probably 750 to maybe a thousand gallon capacity
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And what happens, the wastewater right out of the house comes directly into this tank
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It's got these lids that allow you to inspect the inside of the tank and they also serve
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a very important purpose. three or four years you need to have a company come that actually puts a pipe down in here
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and they pump out all of the solids that collect inside the septic tank
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This is the distribution box. What it does is the waste water from the septic tank comes through this pipe, goes into this
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little box and it goes out to the leach field through these four different pipes This is the leach field and it looks a little weird because of all this concrete It not really a normal one Check out what behind me that roadway
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Well, you know what? This leach field is going to be underneath the road
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that leads to the house that's under construction. What happens in the leach field is that the water comes
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through that distribution box. It goes out into those four pipes and feeds into this leach field
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The leach field consists of about a foot thick layer of sand and the waste water percolates
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down through that sand. It gets cleansed of all the bacteria and pathogens and then it can flow back into the water table
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It's that simple. That's how septic systems work. I'm Tim Carter for askthebuilder.com
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If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to askthebuilder.com
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I want to give really special thanks to Rick Brew and Josh McNeil for allowing me to tape
