Stan Brown wrote:
The county health department says every 2 to 4 years, which seems
like an awfully long time to me. I know when I rented a house my
landlord had the tank pumped every year.

I'm one person, and the tank is 500 gallons. Any guidelines?

According to this link, every 5.8 years:

http://rps.uvi.edu/CES/SEPTIC.overview.htm

Google had 324,000 hits on 'how often to pump septic tank'. The lookup
tables do not seem to agree real well on 3 tables checked at random.

I forget how big my tank is, but it is sized for a 3 BR house, so I
assume at least 1000 gallons. Suppose I oughta dig up the Big Box of
House Purchase Paperwork, and see if it is listed, or call the company
that did the inspection. But I live alone, there are no regular female
visitors, and I try to be real careful what I put down there. So I
figure I might bother to get an inspection in year 5 or so. Note that
size of finger system and local soil types are a big variable.

One of many items on the long list of stuff I never got around to doing
was to set a marker (paver block flush with the turf) where the septic
cleanout is, and now the grass has grown back in so well I can't find it
by eyeball. Some people actually put a hunk of concrete pipe with an
insulating plug, and a manhole cover, over the cleanout. That makes
cleanouts trivial.

aem sends....