On 8/4/2016 4:06 PM, dpb wrote:
On 08/04/2016 2:57 PM, Frank wrote:
...

To get approval for a septic system you must do a perk test and will not
get a pass if drainage is too fast or two slow. ...

Leak may not be a problem but my settlement tank had to be patched once
but I don't know what the problem was. ...

But what will pass for a perc test will be _far_ less than what a point
source of some size could perc with a leak is my point because the field
will be sized for the soil conditions as well as the load. It'd be
extremely easy to soak an area around a tank in soil that perc's pretty
well by the test.

Something similar to what hypothesized maybe or perhaps the field line
connect or such; who knows?

We put a switchover in when didn't the new field in TN, too, altho I
never had to make use of it when the second field was installed properly.

It'd still be interesting to know how OP know he has a leak...

--

I think of a leak as something minor and if soaking and disclosing
itself it needs fixing.

When my 2nd field was installed it might have been 10 years before
getting saturated and I had a time finding the switch box as it was
buried. That was when I put a ring on it with a cap and fixed the
degraded concrete. When the kids were home and we had high flow
toilets, I had to switch every few years but today have been using the
original field at least 15 years. Living on the side of a hill,
everything is downhill. My settlement tank is about 6 feet below my
basement level and drain fields below another 15-20 feet.

I've seen all kinds of septic systems. Guys in back of me have to pump
grey water up hill. Pump failure means saturation in tank. Guy across
the street had a cesspool from single elderly couple that failed when
the house filled with people. Fortunately a sewer line came in below
his side of the hill and he could hook up. Guy down the street also
went into sewer. He inherited a system that allowed chlorination of his
grey water to discharge into the creek that went past his house. Would
never be allowed today.