Septic tank location

[DX]

How do you locate a septic tank?

I'm working on a house and the septic works fine, no need to do anything, but the new owner has no idea where it is. Previous owner is deceased and no records. I don't see any obvious signs. I will eventually bring in a septic guy to clean it out since we don't know when it was last done, but I'm just curious how one goes about locating it.

 

[Cass]

Do you have a basement or slab...

 

[Sponsor]

 

[hj]

Here, the county health department has records for most of the installations. Otherwise, a pipe line locator can send his transponder down the pipe and trace its route until it reaches the tank. As a rule of thumb, here, the tank is about 15' from the house at the point where the sewer leaves the house.

 

[Cass]

I see many where someone built a deck over the tank lid....

 

[Jimbo]

Do you have a basement or slab...

That is exactly what my father did in about 1950. He bought the house in '46, freshly built. Probably had no idea where the tank was, thought it was further out from the house, and built a 3 seasons room right out over it. Later, when the tank needed pumping, they had to do some exploratory diggiing, and finally had to tunnel just about a foot under the slab to find the lid!

 

[DX]

The house is on slab, no decks and no additions.

So if I call a septic guy to pump it out, he'll have to get a location guy to trace it out for him?

 

[RRW]

Around here they use a probe fashioned out of a piece of rod about 5 feet long. Put a right angle on one end for a handle and sharpen the other end. In the spring when the soil is wet you can put that thing down with very little effort to locate the tank.

 

[Cass]

be sure the rod is not electrically conductive...or the obvious could happen if you pierced an electric cable.......