Six. Apparently the answer is six.

[gerisullivan]

Here at Toad Woods, I have propane gas, a septic tank, and a well. My childhood home had a cesspool until the city finally connected all of the houses on the street to the sewer system long after I moved away. Before moving here, I'd been on city sewer systems all of my adult life.

There was something about a repair done 10 years before my purchase that meant it failed the pre-sale Title V inspection and major work was done the month before I bought the Zeppelin Hangar and moved in. Everything was cleaned out in that process, and I understood that routine maintenance called for pumping out the tank every year or two.

I live by myself and am gone a fair bit of the time. A year into things, Plow Guy, who is also Septic System Repair Guy, said he was trying to expand into the Septic Cleaning business, but not quite there yet. I was okay with that -- every two years seemed sufficient.

Which brings us to 2006. I called Plow Guy and talked with his wife. Yes, they had someone who could pump out tanks on Fridays. They scheduled me for the next one, in late April.

Only something happened, and he couldn't come. Okay, whenever.

About that same time, I had the driveway paved. I looked at the map of the septic system and very carefully marked off the area out front where the D-box was so they wouldn't pave over it. I (mis)understood that the D-box was the important connection point for cleaning.

Um, nope. There's a cover in the top of the tank that they open up and pump it out from there.

Then there came the not-so-small matter of finding the tank. When Plow Guy's various employees showed up later that summer to clean out the tank, I pulled out the map, showed them where I thought the D-box was, and learned that no, we needed to find the tank itself. Over the course of a month and several visits, they measured, and proceeded to sink rods and dig small holes all over out front. They hit rock after rock after rock, but no tank. Plow Guy himself came out and was on the verge of leaving after another unsuccessful series of measurements and holes when I looked at the drawing and asked, "why are we measuring from these points? Could this mean we're supposed to measure from those?"

Yep. Sure enough, we'd all been misreading the map, even the folks who drew it.

And, yes, just as you've suspected ever since I mentioned having the driveway paved, the tank was under the pavement. Uh-oh.

Plow Guy said he had a saw and could cut the pavement. Okay. That sucked, but we had to have access to the tank to pump it out. No choice there.

By this time, we were into late summer/early fall. The rest of the fall went swiftly by without additional progress on the problem.

Then 2007 went by. Eep. I poured septic system treatment stuff down the toilet and crossed my fingers.

At the end of the 2007-08 plowing season, I sent a note about the septic system access issue along with my last plowing check. I tried calling a couple of times, finally reaching Plow Guy's wife yesterday afternoon. Plow Guy called me back last night and said he'd be here this morning.

Excellent. I've had no problems yet, but have been fearing that I was that fabled "one flush away" from major problems for some months now.

He came with much reassuring news this morning. Once we get access to the tank, he can have it pumped out, install risers so we never have to dig again, put the plates over them, and even repair the pavement. He's a versatile guy, even if he does sometimes let projects slide for a year or two. And he's really reliable on the plowing, and charges fairly, etc. etc.

I'd been figuring that I'd have to have Paving Guy do the repairs at the very least, and that I might well have to find my own tank-pumping service since it was unclear whether that part of Plow Guy's business expansion had worked out or not. Scheduling home maintenance services is tricky in the best of circumstances. I've never been in the best of circumstances.

The further news this morning is that we need two holes in the pavement rather than one. There's the input cover where a "T" is and the output cover, too. Some tanks are divided into two sections and need to have both pumped. Stuff sometimes gets stuck at the connecting points; we need to be able to get to them. Okay.

There's now one cleanly-cut hole in my driveway. Sure enough, there's the septic tank about 18 inches underneath it. There's even a cover, an access point to the tank, in the part that's now uncovered.

Only it's a "small cover," not one of the main ones.

I asked the obvious question: "How many covers does a septic tank have?"

The guy who'd just spent the previous hour cutting the pavement and digging the hole thought for a moment, then described the six covers in the top of the tank. Newer tanks apparently only have two big ones, but my tank? My tank has four little ones and two big ones.

I feel so special.

Comments

[malibrarian.livejournal.com]

That's because you are special.

My mother had to get her septic cleaned the day before my sister's wedding. I was delegated to stay home and wait for them. Such fun days...

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Since I just read a passage in the new Undead book about being "probed," your story about searching for holes strikes me as hysterically funny.

(I *am* glad that they found your septic tank. When we were kids, my mom had this amazing rock garden all built up and with gorgeous flowers and moss and stuff...then we found out that the septic tank opening was, you guessed it, under the rock garden.)

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, septic tanks are annoying, even after they're dead. The one at this house -- abandoned when the County put in a sewer system before we bought it -- was in the front yard, all too obvious by the circle in the lawn I was trying to maintain back then. A big patch of concrete, even though covered with a couple of feet of soil, sure plays hob with water absorption and attempts to grow anything above it, so "under the driveway" may have been the best choice. But yeah, a good and unambiguous map is also important. (I'm assuming that your tank is sufficiently strongly-constructed to support the weight of the largest vehicle that might be driven over it, so that you needn't worry on that score ... unless you really want something else to be concerned about.)

[tamiam.livejournal.com]

Hey! I wanted to tell you next time I saw you, but here is fine I think, that when I was a delegate for Hilary for the Washington State Democrats in Spokane a couple of weeks ago, the meet and greet on Thursday night was at the University there and in a place called Toad Hall. I thought of Toad Woods when I saw that in print.