Septic is in!

Finally, finally, finally the septic system has been installed.

Whoo! If I only knew then what I know now ….

Digging the holes was the thing that took the longest.

When we bought the land I dreamed of building an off-grid home with compost toilets (vericomposting would have been even better), a grey water system, and solar power. The first thing I did was send an email over the county to ask if we could have compost toilets and to find out if I had to get a septic system since I wanted to have compost toilets. It took them about two months to finally come back and say: yes. The rationale is that even though the black water from the toilets won’t be going into the septic system (’cause it’s a waterless system), the black water from the kitchen sink will.

Costs

This is how it all broke down for us:

Per test: $400

Septic permit: $500

Septic materials: $3,400

Labor for septic: $1,500

The total to get our 1000 gallon septic system installed was $5,800.

Time

The whole thing took months because we didn’t know what we were doing and didn’t want to spend the money to do it. As the saying goes though … you can’t fight City Hall. Once we decided that the money was going o have to be spent, it took two weeks.

26 chambers, 50 ft of pipe, a distribution box, end caps, glue, and a 1000 gallon tank cost $3,400,

This is one end of the tank and the pipe that goes into the distribution box and then to the two lines.

The finished product left halfway exposed so the county can see.

The finished project after the county gave us our yellow tag!

Installation

We ordered the materials on a Thursday. They delivered everything that Saturday. The next Thursday the install team showed up. It took them about 4 to 5 hours to dig all the holes, drop the 1000 gallon tank in, and then line up the 26 chambers (13 in each row). Friday afternoon we checked to make sure that the tank wasn’t leaking. It wasn’t so we put in the application to discharge Friday right before 4pm. That Monday the inspector came out and yellow tagged it (we passed).