Oh pshaw, on Mon 02 Oct 2006 06:23:16a, HarryS meant to say...

You can get any answer you'd like on this subject. Some will tell you
they've used it for xxx years without having to pump the tank.

I've had two septic tank installers tell me that it does reduce the
amount of sludge that accumulates in the tank but at the risk of
plugging your drainfield. They claimed that in normal operation, septic
effluent is taken from approximately the center of the vertical height
of the tank and goes to the drainfield. In a properly operating system,
the center section of the tank will deliver the clearest water, which is
what you want to go to the drainfield. The top layer of the tank will
have the floating sewage and the bottom layer will be the denser sewage,
along with the mineral matter that came from the fully digested solids
in the sewage. When you have a tank pumped, what is being removed is
primarily the mineral matter that has accumulated from the digested
sewage. The septic installer's explanation as to why the Rid-X is not
good for a septic system is that it causes solids in the sewage to break
into fine particles and that many of these fine particles are suspended
in the center layer and wind up going to the drainfield. When they get
to the drainfield, they create what they call a 'biomat' on the surfaces
that are supposed to absorb the liquids into the soil. Eventually, this
can plug the drainfield.

This explanation sort of makes sense to me. I can't imagine how a 1000
gallon septic tank can hold 20 or 30 years of mineral matter
accumulation when you consider that the mineral matter should only be
allowed to accumulate in the bottom portion of the tank (to the bottom
of the riser that delivers effluent to the drainfield). If you let the
mineral matter (plus any solids in the sewage that is denser than water)
build up to the bottom of the riser, you'd either get sewage solids
going to the drainfield up through the riser or the riser would plug,
which could allow floating grease and sewage enter the drainfield line
over the top of the riser. Either situation would lead to plugging of
the drainfield.

Thanks, Harry. A lot of food for thought.


--
Wayne Boatwright
__________________________________________________

I have seen the future, and it looks a lot like
the present -- only much longer. --Dan Quisenberry