crazyjncsu
New Member
I'm building a house. The house is up on a hill, but it has a basement. There are several areas for a septic field all around.
The outright best area for the leech field, not considering elevation, may be about 50' from the house in a nice grassy area. But this area is more on the level with the 1st story of the house, maybe 2' below it, and the area is maybe 7' higher than the basement where there will be a bathroom.
There are other areas for the leech field below the level of the basement, but are farther away from the house, have trees on them (not specimen trees though), have a slope to them, etc.
I have a meeting with the septic contractor and the builder at the property in a few days. I'd like to be prepared. I don't have a reason to distrust them, it's just that our interests may not be aligned-- they may rather install a pumped system in order to work in a nice easy grassy area and get a side benefit of selling me replacement pumps every 10 years ... I may rather them work a little harder up front to locate a gravity-fed system to avoid paying for new pumps and electricity to run them.
I know there are a ton of considerations here, way too many for y'all to make a judgement on where the field should go. However, I'd like to get a sense of _how_ important _you_ feel it is to avoid pumping within the system? Would you want a system where the whole system was pumped? Or would you mind if just the basement had a lift pump? Are there any advantages to a pumped system (dosing?) over gravity? Would you go out of your way to insist that the system be entirely gravity driven? Or would you just trust the contractors?
Thanks!
The outright best area for the leech field, not considering elevation, may be about 50' from the house in a nice grassy area. But this area is more on the level with the 1st story of the house, maybe 2' below it, and the area is maybe 7' higher than the basement where there will be a bathroom.
There are other areas for the leech field below the level of the basement, but are farther away from the house, have trees on them (not specimen trees though), have a slope to them, etc.
I have a meeting with the septic contractor and the builder at the property in a few days. I'd like to be prepared. I don't have a reason to distrust them, it's just that our interests may not be aligned-- they may rather install a pumped system in order to work in a nice easy grassy area and get a side benefit of selling me replacement pumps every 10 years ... I may rather them work a little harder up front to locate a gravity-fed system to avoid paying for new pumps and electricity to run them.
I know there are a ton of considerations here, way too many for y'all to make a judgement on where the field should go. However, I'd like to get a sense of _how_ important _you_ feel it is to avoid pumping within the system? Would you want a system where the whole system was pumped? Or would you mind if just the basement had a lift pump? Are there any advantages to a pumped system (dosing?) over gravity? Would you go out of your way to insist that the system be entirely gravity driven? Or would you just trust the contractors?
Thanks!
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