My one year warranty is up on my house and tomorrow the contractor is coming by for my punch list. A few months after I moved in, the ground around the septic started caving in. When I uncovered it, I found that the fitting on the pipe to the sludge side of the tank was not glued at the elbow and not sealed at the tank so we were leaking raw sewage. The plumbing contractor came out and fixed it.
The photo shows a tee on the leach field side of the tank that has a filter in it. The tee is not glued. The plumbing contractor is telling me it isn’t supposed to be glued. I think the guy is full of what is in the sludge side of the tank. Also…the sludge side of the tank has about 5" of sludge in it after one year. It is just my wife and I in the house. Is that about right? Need help from some of you plumbing experts.
Gary, call Peter Russell. He started the below thread and is quite knowledgeable on this subject. His contact info should be in his website link at the bottom of the first post.
Gary, here in NH that outlet baffle connection has to be secured with stainless steel screws and not glue. I doubt PVC cement would hold up in that environment. Also, the outlet pipe should be sealed with hydraulic cement where it exits the tank to prevent leakage.
As far as the sludge your seeing, that’s the floating scum mat and is normal. Every tank has three layers. The sludge on bottom, liquid in the middle and the scum layer on top. This is why the PVC pipe extends down through the floating scum layer into the liquid layer and the filter also helps prevent small particulates from leaving the tank.
Just make sure the screws are in place and the pipe is sealed and you should be good to go. Make sure that when the tank gets pumped every few years they inspect both the inlet and outlet baffles to ensure they’re intact.
