Septic tank connected to public sewer

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dwal

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I'm looking at purchasing a house where the seller says that waste is running through a septic tank into the public sewer. I don't know how common this sort of thing is, so I have some questions:

- Is this setup generally considered to be safe/legal? It's not listed as a defect on the disclosure, so I'm thinking it's OK?
- Would it still need to be pumped and cleaned periodically?
- Any other possible dangers, concerns, or potential costs associated with this setup?

I realize I haven't given a lot of detail. I think I'm going to want to get the line inspected to figure out exactly what I'm dealing with, but I'm wondering if anyone has any more general thoughts or experiences with this sort of thing.
 

Smooky

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I have seen septic tanks converted to pump tanks that pumped to the city sewer. Most city sewer systems are aerobic treatment systems and a septic system is anaerobic so normally the septic tank would be bypassed if the waste water flows by gravity to the sewer. Sometimes the pipe might run through the old tank and the tank gets filled in with soil.
I would want to know more. If there is a pump there will be an access and maybe an alarm etc. The city may be able to provide info if it is pumping to the sewer, a home inspector may not be able to figure it all out.

I did work on one that did gravity flow through a septic tank and then went to the city sewer. At some point the house was added onto and this old tank was partly under this addition. Years later the line got stopped up. We tried to snake the main line to the street. The snake wouldn’t go through because it was hitting the baffle wall in the tank. From the street the snake was hitting the outlet tee in the tank. We weren’t sure what it was hitting and started digging. The tank was ¾ under the slab. We had to knock out one end and call a pumper. Then get inside the tank and knock out the top of the baffle wall, pump more poop out so we could climb over to where the pipe entered the tank. We connected to the inlet pipe and ran the pipe out to the line going to the sewer and filled the old tank in with sand. It ended up being rather pricey.
 
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