Equipment arrives for the Title 5 Inspection
Early in March my husband went down to the Board of Health in town to see if there were any hoops for us to jump through before we started building the additions. They wanted a Title 5 inspection done on our septic system. They also said we had to have a minimum of 1500 gallon tank for 3 bedrooms.
The original tank, installed in 1983, was 1000 gallons. When we added on in 1993 my husband thought when they moved the tank (and part broke in the process) it was a 1500 gallon. If it was a 1000 gallon, we’d need a larger tank.
That wasn’t so bad. When they moved the tank in 1990 it had been nearly empty. When we put in the original in 1983, my father, the engineer who did the system, told us if we took care of the system, never put anything nasty down it, it should never need pumping.
So all these years we took meticulous care of it, never pumped it, and it had always been fine. So we were not expecting any problems with the inspection.
Here in Massachusetts, if your septic system doesn’t pass, they often make you put these huge mounds, especially if you are on flat ground. But as I said, ours had worked well for decades, so we weren’t expecting any problems.
We knew the tank was at the edge of the New Herb garden, so we cleared an area for the inspection.
They carefully cleared the soil away. The first trap opening they tried to open crumbled. My husband went to the local pipe supply to get a replacement. He came back empty handed, they don’t make them anymore.
The next trap opening came off fine and that inspection was fine. Then they dug out the D box. Unfortunately, it had deteriorated and was crumbling. But worse than that, it had too much water in it.
They next took off the cleanout trap opening, and it was obvious the entire system had failed. We’d need a whole new system. A regular system, like we’d had, started at $20,000. But if we had to have a pump system, they ran $20,000 – $50,000. This was not looking good….
So we called a recommended engineer and scheduled a perculation test, the first step. This would determine what sort of system we’d end up with.
So another Kubota mini excavator arrived last Thursday. We hoped we could put a system next to the New Herb garden, on the west side, so that’s where he set up to dig the holes.
We’d had the 2 spruce trees taken down the day before, so there was room for him to work. The trees were dying from a fungus and had been scheduled to come down this year.
The engineer said they may have to dig as many as 6 holes. But the Board of Health guy said he only wanted 2.
The engineer taking soil samples
They are now required to record the layers of soil in the holes dug.
They are graded by soil type and color. I think he recorded 5 layers in the holes. You can see our topsoil is about 16” deep here. He also recorded how wide the layers were.
Once he’d gotten that done, the hole was dug deeper, to 10’ I think, for the Board of Health guy to see.
This first hole was back filled and then a test hole dug into it.
This is the actual “perc” test, determining how fast a set amount of water poured into this hole goes down in an hour.
While this was working, they dug the second hole, recorded layers, inspected and refilled it. The “perc” test went well from what the engineer said, draining quickly in our fine sandy loam. (Notice there’s no rocks to be found….)
It took about 3 hours until they were done. The excavator operator did a good job of putting things to rights. Next up was the surveying by the engineer so he could site it properly. Again, another wait, more limbo….
Surveying with a transit
The engineer came out and did an electronic survey on Monday morning. It sure was different from the way it was done in 1983. The engineer said he’d have an initial plan for us in a week. It came in yesterday.
It was as bad as we feared. There’s a pump chamber, a huge mound that will take out the last tree on the west side, plus 20’ of pasture. Not looking good, money wise.
So it’s being finalized, he said it would take him 6 hours, and he will send it to the excavator guy for a quote. So we are still in limbo….
Source:
Surveying: https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/129265
Mound: http://www.morsecoinc.com/title-5-septic-specialist