When installing a septic system for a home, do they just dig a hole in the earth and set the system in it and fill it back up with dirt?
The main thing I’m really asking, are the walls of the dirt floor supported? Do they pour a concrete structure for the system? Or just dig a hole and fill it back up? How deep and how wide are most septic systems?
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Most home septic systems consist of a concrete septic tank and leach field, plus the associated piping between them.
The tank is made with baffles to prevent solids from migrating to the far end of the tank until they’ve been broken down by bacterial and mechanical degradation, and the leach field is primarily coarse gravel sloped away from the tank, which handles liquid runoff and allows the liquids to percolate into the soil beneath. All of this is covered with soil and sod as to be invisible from above.
You may also have what is called a “dry well” for gray water. Gray water is water from showers, sinks and (especially) laundry waste water. That is, it has no excrement in it, and therefore doesn’t need the same sanitary treatment. The dry well is typically a deep pit filled with the same type of coarse gravel as the leach field (in a different area, so they don’t interfere) which allows the laundry water to settle out as the soil around the dry well can accommodate it. (The smell from the dry well will also knock you down if you have to open it again years down the road. It’s much worse than opening a septic tank.)
Put the ‘concrete septic tank’ is premade at the factory and set in the hole, right?
Cwotus said it all and factual.
About 25 years ago I had a 1000 gallon concrete tank installed to replace the 35 year old steel tank that had fallen apart. It was massive. If I remember correctly, about 5 feet in diameter and 5–6 feet deep, with walls of about 6 inch thick concrete.
It looked like a missile silo.
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