Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Septic location problems

I am in the process of finalizing plans to build our new house. We were hoping to break groung early this fall. The property is about 22 acres and is cut roughly in ½ by a small creek, wetlands and woods. I had a septic contractor there yesterday trying to find a suitable drain field. The bad news was that there were no suitable spots on the part of the property where we wanted to put the house. The contractor said the site wouldn’t even support a sand mound system. Pending the final perc test today the suitable areas he found and were approved by the inspector are on the other side of the creek. If I build where we originally planned (great view of the pond, secluded, etc) we would have to pump the waste about 400-500 feet to that site and need to pipe it under the creek and possibly through wetlands. That means EPA permits and, according to the contractor, it could take a while. Sometimes more than a year - assuming it even gets approved.

So now I am faced with the decision of possibly changing our plans and move the house location or keeping it as is and dealing with running a septic pipe under the creek. Moving the building site to the other side would be easier to build and wind up costing less (much less driveway, utilities much easier to run, septic easier) and I could build much sooner (maybe a year+ sooner). However, it would not be as close to the pond (500 feet vs 100ft) or as secluded and would limit where I can locate the horse barn.

This is very disappointing and frustrating. Has anyone ever had to run a septic pipe under a creek or have experience dealing with the EPA on something like this? I am sure it’s at least partially dependent on the state and county but I am not sure if this will be more trouble than it’s worth

Personally,I would go FAR,FAR out of my way to avoid any gov't agenecy,let alone the E.P.A.(Every Prepared Annoyance)

RobA, I can sympathize with your problem, here in the Adirondacks we have some of the most restrictive regulations in the country.
I was forced to put in an Eljen septic system at my cabin, which is really overkill.
I don't know if this would work for you but here is the link to it,Good luck. Eljen septic

Rob, have you looked into incinerating toilets? Are they allowed in your area?

Sounds like an odoriferous way to singe one's eyebrows.

------------------------------------------------------------

Hard to give any advice on building placement without a map, Rob, but perhaps there are some silver linings in addition to less $ to build on the far side of the creek from the pond.

Can you save enough money to put in another pond?

Does it shorten the distance for electric lines to be run to the house?

Does "secluded" for the original site mean it would be out of sight from where you want to place the horse barn? (We worry enough about ours even though we can kep an eye on it from the house.)

Placing lines under creeks are easily done with Horizontal directional drills(moles) You still would need the paperwork but it is simply done. I spent the extra money to be build closer to my pond and it was well worth it for me. You will allways think of how nice it would be to have the house right by the pond

My dad has an incinolet on his boat. It works pretty good, no stink at all... Not sure if I would want it in my house though. Still a lot of gray water from the showers, sinks, dishwasher, laundry etc... The government may frown on them going willy nilly into the ground.

i havent seen this mentioned so i'll throw it out there.....

how about a second opinion? i.e. get another independant septic contractor to review your preferred building site.

BINGO!
I am currently going thru a similar experience, except the conflicting players are: my plan, the soils analyst's plan, and a trusted septic contractor that thinks we're both nuts and not very creative when it comes to human waste.
Another point of view is warranted.

This might be a dumb question, but wouldn't it be better to do the perk tests in late spring, or early summer?
Also agree with DIED & Brettski get 1 or 2 more opinions, especially when your future house and pond plans are at stake.
Exhaust all options!

Are alternate systems allowed in your area? An aerobic system with either low pressure dosing, sub surface system or a system with a clorinator and surface irrigation may be an option.
A link to some alternate systems:http://www.abe.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/f/f170.pdf

OK, here are some more specifics and answers to your questions.


Looks like a good system but Eljen is not approved for use in PA. The Eljen system wouldn't address the soil's inability to absorbe the treated effluent.


They are allowed but not practical for a 4 bedroom house. I would still need to get rid of the grey water from the washer, shower, etc


I'll post a rough plot plan after I answer these questions
I wouldn't save enough for another pond
The electric line run would be shortened a lot
Secluded means with the barn. If we move the house we move the barn.


I asked the contractor if I could appeal the the decison of the soil engineer from the Board of Health (they control this). He said he didn't think so. Kind of like "fighting City Hall".


I ain't giving up. I may have to put in a few lift pumps and move the 'stuff' 1,000 feet. What are you going to do?


The first part of the test is only looking at the soil structure. Then they drill holes and soak them overnight. The next day they fill the holes again so they can test how fast it drains. Supposedly it doesn't matter too much what season it is.


Thanks for the link. I can use some alternative systems, however, so far the soils will not even support most of them.

------------------------------------
I'll post a plot plan I drew using an older aerial photo.

I found out today that my primary septic site failed the perc test. The secondary site passed but only for a sand mound system (2.5x the cost of a traditional system). I still need to find a backup site.

Here is a plot plan I drew using an older aerial photo (I've had more trees cleared since the picture was taken).....

Red lines approxomate the property lines
Water (pond, creek) is blue (I own 1/2 of the pond)
Red ovals are wetlands
Green oval is proposed horse pasture
Green rectangle is proposed horse barn
Yellow rectangle near green oval is preferred house site
Other yellow rectangle is alternate house site
Brown square is sand mound approved septic area
Black line is current driveway
Black oval is current tractor barn
Yellow line is proposed driveway to preferred house site
Field near tractor barn will probably be a hay field

I paid for a soils analyst to come out to perc test.
The area I planned on for the septic field failed. This completely caught me off guard. I never expected it to happen, and now I have this guy on my dime asking me if I have an alternate. I knew I had a nice meadow about 300 feet thru a patch of timber, but I never dreamed that it would wind up being the alternate. He looks around the immediate area and doesn't see anything that makes sense to him. I tell him about the meadow and we head out there. He takes some samples and is all smiles. It's gonna be great for a septic field. All I have to do is pump it out there. WHAT THE? Man, that was definitely NOT the plan. OK, he does his thing, makes a map and marks the field.
I call my septic contractor out and he is completely baffled. he looks over my layout and building pad and asks me if we tried over at this other end, at the top of the slope where there is little to no fill. I admitted that I couldn't add 1 + 1 after he buried me with my denial for the planned area. My septic guy starts to explain how we can lay the field. It doesn't have to be any specific shape or dimension....just have enough field. He says he will talk to the health department; maybe even get them out there to look it over. He basically poo-poo'd the guy I paid a couple hundred bux to tell me that I have only one other option of pumping.
I have not yet verified that my septic guy's plan will work in the area he says, but when he started describing all the methods of mitigating iffy soils and laying things out, I realized that I might never completely understand. I'm somewhat encouraged that I might still bail out with a conventional system, but take some comfort that my worst case scenario is to pump it another 300 feet or so.

I worked my system from a different angle. I determined an acceptable level for the effluent and bought a system to match that.

So for me the question would have been what does the government allow? There are systems on the market that release drinking level quality effluent.

Rad, That's what I was thinking. An aerobic system with a few sprinkler heads in that horse pasture.

I like the simplicity of a coventional system. Set it and forget it. But if you're going to have a pump, that's going to be the weak link, it will require maintenience. Might as well just go aerobic if the state will allow it.

We have an aerobic system. Ground was too silty to support a septic system. Ours is just a 1000 gallon per day system, but even on two or three times that, it still functions. It requires about the same amount of maintenance as a septic tank.

Does an aerobic system change the requirements of the absorbtion area? My problem is soils that have 'limiting factors' which inhibit absorbtion.

As I understand it, there is no field. It's a 2 tank system that emits a clean effluent suitable for direct discharge to the topsoil.
You aerobic guys can tune me up.

Basically correct. It's a package system with air pumped into the mix. For surface discharge the effluent passes through a clorinator into the pump tank. It can be pumped to sprinkler heads to be discharged on the surface.

I'm still digging into this. I was looking through some information about Pennsylvania's regulations and I'm not sure this type of system is allowed here.

On a good note, I talked with the DEP about the creek crossing. The approval process sounds simple and is very similar to the creek culvert repair permit I received from them a few months ago. I did that myself and got an approval pretty quickly.