Does your home have a septic tank?

Do you treat it (with Ridx or whatever)?

How often have you had to pump it, if ever?

What can/can't we flush?

Clueless here...

We have a cesspool and had it pumped last year. We'd been in the house about 16 months and I don't think the previous residents had done anything. They told us it was about a month away from backing up into the house, and you could see it was right up to the top.

They gave us a natural enzyme stuff to flush every other month. They had an option for a chemical but given our older cesspool they recomended the enzyme.

I think the frequency depends in part on the size and the number of people in the house. Quite honestly, I don't recall what they told us on frequency, but I don't think it will need to be done for at least a few years.

We used Windriver Environmental - I think they were in Bohemia or Holbrook, with other branches around LI too. VERY good, and the price was good too.

I have a house in Nassau and we have a cesspool!! Two of them actually. Probably one of only a few towns in Nassau that aren't hooked up to the Nassau County sewer system. As a consultant for an environmental engineering firm, I kid you not in the fact that I was just overseeing a project where a college was replacing all their old cinder block cesspool structures with leachign rings. So I know a bit about cesspools and septic systems.

Cesspools are designed so that they should never have to be pumped out. The solids should naturally breakdown and biodegrade over time, while the liquid portion will seep out of the cinder blocks or rings and be absorbed in the earth. However, as the pool gets older, the system may not work as well and back-ups are a big proabability. Cesspools are fine for residential homes, but for any establishment serving more than 20 people per day, they are no longer allowed. They must convert to a septic system.

A septic system is a solid bottomed tank, usually of concrete construction, that is designed to hold the solids and a series of overflow pipes convey the water to a series of leaching pools where it absorbes into the ground. The solids in the tank should also breakdown and biodegrade, but with everyday usage, this won't happen and septic tanks are pumped out on a regular basis.

Any type of enzyme or chemical treatment would work fine in a cesspool, but I am not sure if there are benefits to using them in a septic system.


ETA: Karen H the job I was just overseeing utilized WindRiver. You didn't happen to deal with a guy names Bill, did you? And yes, I would recommend them.

OK, so we should look into having it pumped (previous owners had it done about 1 1/2 ago).

What about flushing and down the drain do's and don'ts? Someone told me no bleach or ammonia down the drain-true? If a drain clogs, is Drano or Liquid Plumber ok? OK to flush tampons????

We have a septic, when we moved in we didn't know where it was and neither did anyone else.

About 3 months after we were in and two days after having 24 people for Thanksgiving the waste pipe started leaking water from the washing machine so we called a company to come pump it.

I won't get into the ordeal involved when these guys tried to find it but they finally did and assured us it was in good shape, about 10 yrs old, but probably hadn't been pumped in that long either. They put some bacteria in and closed it up. They said they'd send a reminder to do it agin in 3 years. And that we don't need to add anything ourselves.

How often its pumped really depends on how big the septic is and how many people are using it.

What not to put down? Well I don't flush anything that I wouldn't put in a regular toilet, ie tampons, papertowels, etc. don't want it getting stuck. And I check the TP I get but they all seem to say Safe for Septic anyway. So do alot of cleaning chemicals.

I did hear that certain chemicals should not go down in large quantities, because it will kill the natural bacteria that needs to be there to break down all the junk. But then again I wouldn't dispose of anything like that down the toilet or drain anyway so it doesn't get into the ground.