On Feb 18, 9:44*am, Van Chocstraw
wrote:
MC wrote:
I purchased a house with a 15 year old 1500 gallon concrete septic
tank. The home inspector found that the level of fluid in the tank was
6 inches lower than the outlet pipe, suggesting a leak in the tank,
since the tank had not been pumped in 2-3 years. Only 2 adults and one
child live in the house with a septic sytem capacity built for this 4
bedroom house. Baffles were normal. The leech field was in excellent
condition.

A contractor for the seller pumped out the tank and inspected it
revealing some cracking next to the gasket joining the upper and lower
halves of the tank. He repaired this with hydraulic cement, but felt
that the crack did not seem significant. He also said that there was
very little mortar left around the collar of either the outlet or
inlet pipe (can't remember), and also repaired that with hydraulic
cement.

My question: Do the findings of the contractor reasonably match the
severity of the problem (water level 6" below outlet pipe)? In other
words, is the low level of water usually in your experiences due to a
HUGE problem, or sometimes just due to small fixable cracks, like I
described above?

THANKS!

We had a septic tank leak that came to surface when I was a kid. We had
the biggest, plumpest raspberries in the neighborhood.

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Usually the problem is a septic tank that is too full, not full
enough. For arguments sake, let's say there is some opening in the
tank that is allowing some of the water to leak out. The water
has to go into the ground anyway, whether via the leach field or from
the tank leak. In years gone by, that was with a cesspool, which was
essentially a tank with no bottom.

The only issues I can see would be if the septic tank location is less
than the code distance from a well. Or if water is coming up at the
surface near the tank, etc.

Otherwise. I wouldn't worry about it.