Mellow Yellow Ya dont leave it in there for days on end or when you have company. :roll: Besides, I see your avitar has a cat on it. I can assure you that urine in the toilet a few hours is far less nasty than a cat licking himself then giving you kissies
One hot summer I worked for the "L'il Stinker" company, a guy down the street from us that pumped septic tanks. It actually wasn't a bad job. Most of my day was spent driving all over backwoods in a big white pickup truck. My job was to get to the customer in advance of the tank truck, find the septic tank, and dig down to the lid so everything would be ready when "Sweeney" got there with the tank truck. The tank truck was great--huge black monster with two white stripes running down the back, a picture of a skunk, and his phone number. If you saw it once, you remembered it instantly whenever your toilets backed up. Over the course of the summer "Sweeney" told me a number of interesting and possibly true stories. This has always been one of my favorites. Sweeney got called out to this house in in a very ritzy suburb. Typical problem, the toilets are backing up. Young husband answers the door, tells him the tank is "out there" somewhere. Sweeney goes out, finds and uncovers the tank, takes a look inside. It's got zillions of condoms happily floating on top of the, ah, other contents. They've floated up against the outflow hole, thereby blocking up the whole system. Sweeney walks back up to the house and brings the guy out to show him what the problem is. The guy is obviously stunned, so Sweeney starts to explain that condoms don't do well in a septic tank. The guy cuts him off and says between clenched teeth, "I don't use them." He thinks it over for a minute, writes Sweeney a check for the full bill, and tells him to just leave it like it is. Uncovered! To this day he has no idea what happened when the wife got home. LOL
we have used rid x several times. might be time for it again. and yes the dishwasher and clothes washer go to the septic tank. we try to spread out the loads in dishes and clothes like not doing several the same day. i will try the rid x again and see if it fixes the problem. but i ultimatley (sp) think it needs to be pumped so i can start over with an empty tank and maintain it myself from there on out.
Be sure to check for a leaky toilet that could be adding water to your septic tank in amazing amounts. With any back up or smell in the yard, you may also have a line or two that cannot do their job... stopped up, trees in the way, crushed from something heavy that drove over them... you should have a line junction box that has a cover you can open & check the flow... this would be gray water not solids & not toooooooo smelly.
where would this junction box be located at? i have not seen anything in the 1.5 years i have lived here
The junction box, also called a distribution box or D-box, is the box where all the the drain lines originate from. It is usually a few feet to no more than 30 feet from the tank vault. Like the tank vault, it is only a foot or two deep. You could locate your tank and D-box with a probe if you know the general location. The number and footage of drain lines required is based on a variety of factors such as square footage, # of bedrooms and soil type of the drain field. If one or more are clogged or damaged, then you may have only one functional line handling all your waste. After time, the soil around that drain line will become saturated and even just normal usage can cause problems. If you see any bubbling of waste coming to the surface of the ground, then you will possibly need more work done than just pumping out the system. No, I am not a septic technician but I did stay at Holiday Inn last night.
