Arnold, California professional septic maintenance services


Posted On Dec 18 2020

Septic maintenance high quality services in Valley Springs, CA? Your septic tank may not always be top of mind when you’re considering home maintenance, but it’s an important part of your home and something not to be overlooked. Properly caring for your septic tank will extend its life and value, while helping to keep septic tank costs down. Follow these nine easy steps to septic tank care, and you’ll help maintain your septic tank even longer: Don’t throw rubbish down your toilet. It’s so tempting to flush rubbish down your toilet, but it’s very unhealthy for your septic tank system. When you flush items such as cat litter, facial tissue and paper towels, you can clog your septic tank. Use your litter bin for these items.

For homes where the drainfield is located upslope from the septic tank, a pump tank is added to move effluent out of the septic tank and into the drainfield, otherwise, the effluent flows using gravity into a series of perforated pipes buried in the drainfield. Slowly, the effluent is released into the soil where harmful coliform bacteria, viruses, and nutrients are naturally removed, then it percolates through the soil, ultimately discharging to groundwater.

First we need to explain the reason for pumping the septic tank or tanks. The normal riding level of waste water in a tank is approximately 4 feet deep, with a floating scum layer and a bottom solids layer. If a tank is not pumped prior to inspection, a proper visual inspection cannot be performed as no one can see through 4 feet of waste water. The tank floor & sidewalls, the tank center seam/seal, the tank baffle and the complete inlet/outlet sanitary tees are not visible for inspection and system evaluation without pumping the tank first. See extra information at click site.

Septic tanks are a mystery to most people since few of us think about where our wastewater goes once it leaves the house. If you have a septic system or are planning to have one installed, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how they work and how to maintain them. Routine septic system maintenance will not only keep you from spending money on expensive repairs, but it will also help you maintain a safe and healthy environment by avoiding sewer backups and contaminated groundwater.

The wastewater your home produces is referred to as ‘effluent’ and consists of blackwater (toilet and garbage disposal waste) and greywater (shower, sink and laundry waste). Effluent flows directly from your household plumbing into a watertight, underground, two compartment septic tank. Solid waste settles into a sludge layer on the bottom and fats float to the top of the first compartment. Between these two scum layers is a zone of clarified liquid effluent which is internally piped to the second compartment of the septic tank for additional settling.

Foothill Sanitary started in 2001. A family owned business with a strong work ethic and true integrity. Our desire is to help our customers with their septic and portable toilet needs. We take the time to educate our customers about their septic systems so that they understand its function and how to prolong its life span. Our portable toilets are cleaned and disinfected very well so that you always have a nice usable unit.

An Evaporative System is used when the soil cannot treat the waste water before it percolates to the water table. This occurs usually in rocky or sandy soils which drain to fast or where the soil absorption is very poor as you would find in heavy clay soils. An evaportanspiration (ET) bed treats the water by using evaportranspiration, which is the loss of water in the soil by both evaporation and transpiration from the plants growing there. The evaportranspiration bed is shallow and can be lined with a liner or unlined. A liner is required if the soil drains so fast the water can’t be treated before it hits the water table. In clay soils the ET can be unlined which also allows disposal through some absorption in the soil. These are often called evaportransition/absorption beds (ETA). See additional information at https://www.foothillsanitary.com/.

Last Updated on: January 6th, 2021 at 12:00 pm, by


Written by Amelia Whitehart