Hi,
I purchase my home a couple years ago and used water unsparingly until we started having bad plumbing issues over the last two months.
This is a 3BD 2BTH concrete slab home with a septic tank and 2 people living here. The plumbing was backing up when taking long showers for about a week so I had the tank pumped. There was a grease backup right at the inlet to the tank so I thought I was ok after that. The next week we had a lot of family down on vacation (10 people) for a week. The slow draining continued about half way through their visit and got worst the week after they left. In fact the next weekend the system stopped draining at all for about a day and a half and we called a plumber. He snaked the house through the roof vent, said he found a plastic bag in there but the tub didn’t drain yet. He then removed a toilet and snaked from there, nothing. He then opened the septic lid, the tank was full. He immediately took my $400 and quoted me $3000-7000 for a new drain field. I do not have the money right now so I am stuck.
Well shortly after he left the water drained and only backed up during long showers again for the next week or so. Then it backed up again and we have water in bottom of the tubs for another couple days, then the water drained and remained slow but manageable for a couple weeks. Now a week after the last lock up it has done it again this time I notice something that I never noticed before and thought it was strange. With about an inch of backed up water in one tub and the plug in the drain of the other tub my girlfriend turned the water on in the kitchen sick and water came out of the overflows of both tubs and ran down into the tub. I didn’t think this would be possible and never saw this happen before. Typically if you turned the sink on while the tub is backed up the water would come up from the drain not from the overflow 10 or so inches higher.
So my questions are why would water come out of the overflow and is there something I can do to prolong the drain field until I can afford to replace it?
-Eric
I purchase my home a couple years ago and used water unsparingly until we started having bad plumbing issues over the last two months.
This is a 3BD 2BTH concrete slab home with a septic tank and 2 people living here. The plumbing was backing up when taking long showers for about a week so I had the tank pumped. There was a grease backup right at the inlet to the tank so I thought I was ok after that. The next week we had a lot of family down on vacation (10 people) for a week. The slow draining continued about half way through their visit and got worst the week after they left. In fact the next weekend the system stopped draining at all for about a day and a half and we called a plumber. He snaked the house through the roof vent, said he found a plastic bag in there but the tub didn’t drain yet. He then removed a toilet and snaked from there, nothing. He then opened the septic lid, the tank was full. He immediately took my $400 and quoted me $3000-7000 for a new drain field. I do not have the money right now so I am stuck.
Well shortly after he left the water drained and only backed up during long showers again for the next week or so. Then it backed up again and we have water in bottom of the tubs for another couple days, then the water drained and remained slow but manageable for a couple weeks. Now a week after the last lock up it has done it again this time I notice something that I never noticed before and thought it was strange. With about an inch of backed up water in one tub and the plug in the drain of the other tub my girlfriend turned the water on in the kitchen sick and water came out of the overflows of both tubs and ran down into the tub. I didn’t think this would be possible and never saw this happen before. Typically if you turned the sink on while the tub is backed up the water would come up from the drain not from the overflow 10 or so inches higher.
So my questions are why would water come out of the overflow and is there something I can do to prolong the drain field until I can afford to replace it?
-Eric
