DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:
Robert Gammon errs again:

... We sometimes, not often, but sometimes pour boiling water (200F+) down
the drain (i.e. pasta, boiled corn...) That is verboten for a septic tank.

Wrong again.

Ok, I stand corrected.

Some long term users of septic tanks were told LONG ago NOT to pour
boiling water down the drain, it hurts the bacteria in the tank.

While this is true, it is unlikely in the extreme that you could put
enough boiling water down the drain to raise 1000 gallons of waste in
the septic tank by more than a degree or two.

If your 1000 gallon tank were 60 F and perfectly insulated inside
the concrete and you added a gallon of 200 F water, the new temp
would be (200x1+999x60)/1000 = 60.14 F. And bacteria love heat.
Every time you raised tank temp by 10 F (if you could do that),
the digestion rate would double, up to about 130 F.

How can you be so wrong so often? :-)

Nick

Well ground temps are around 70-75 so getting towards 80 and some of
them die off.

I will aim for a larger than 1000 gal tank just to be sure. And a
larger than normal drain field as this will be a 2.5 acre lot.