I appreciate the videos of Nate getting work done like this. For a guy like myself who has not grown up working in the trades, it is more relatable than watching Scott crank out hip rafters without even thinking about it. Great work Nate. Thanks for the video!
Sewer effluent is a major magnet for tree roots. I give it less than 10 years before the drain lines and trenches are root bound being that close to mature trees. A certified engineered system and site survey is worth every penny in hindsight .......... the hard clay and groundwater at 2 feet is also troubling.
That's not ground water. I've dealt with clay just like this. Percolation rate is really slow. So when you get a heavy rain the soil is really saturated. You dig a hole and the water starts escaping the soil into your hole
It would be nice to have a play list for projects such as this. I have been in the building trades my entire adult life (74 years old) and there is nothing more interesting to me than seeing a project progress from start to finish. I just finished the spec house series and it was sort of easy to follow, but I am struggling to see this project in some order of progression. I sure enjoy you and your Dad's channel, so much information that I enjoy.
Deciduous tree roots are brutal. Over 25 years or so, I cleared all the leafy trees well away from the field, at least 75 feet. I've found evergreen roots are much more localized. This episode brought back so many traumatic memories of my septic install--as in a 1000% increase in permit fees which for the first time in my rural area included an inspection!!, having to take perc tests on dirt recently saturated by the spring melt of 4 feet of snow (unfair I said to the health inspector, to no avail) to having 3 pump-out chamber pumps fail in the first 2 years. GK
$80K?! I guess I should go back into the septic installation business, the most I ever charged for a difficult one was $12,000. I never had much faith in the craft, or as we called it rosin paper. It would tear upon backfilling and if it got wet before backfilling, about useless. Straw or a weedblock type fiberous barrier is far more durable. BTW, the silica dust inhaled during the stone placement is a concern. I appreciate the fast motion video, makes me glad I don't have to endure it anymore. Great video!
I installed my own 2 years ago. 1500 gallon concrete tank, same risers and lids was about $2000. 200 feet of leach field with 4" perforated SDR pipe around $300. 150 feet of 4" non perforated SDR from tank to leach field $225. A crapton of drain rock $1200, I could have used cheaper rock. And like $150 for thick landscape fabric for the leach field. I did it in less than a week in really hard soil. There is no way this one was $80k.
@@MrJramirex, In Ohio you have to be licensed to install a septic system and it has to be inspected before you bury anything. The price on materials is probably pretty close to those here.
@Tim Finch That sucks. California lets you do pretty much everything but drilling a well as Owner/Builder. The county's Environmental Health division came to inspect my install after all the rock was at the appropriate depth but before backfilling with dirt.
BTW, 45 years ago I put hundreds of feet of French drain in my yard to catch natural springs that would appear each spring and saturate my yard. The French drain used perforated pipe laid directly on the soil bottom of the ditch, then the pipe covered with 16” of clean gravel. Some had suggested 4” of gravel below the pipe but an old gentleman from the old US Soil Conservation Service said no, you want the perforated pipe laying on the bottom of the ditch because otherwise that 4” of gravel would need to fill with water before it entered the pipe AND that 4” of water in the gravel would likely just follow your pipe to its outlet, making the pipe essentially useless. Made perfect sense to me…get the water in the pipe first, water takes the path of least resistance and the gravel drains groundwater directly TO the pipe! But now to the point I wanted to make…we put a layer of straw on top of the gravel before we backfilled with soil. 45 years later my French drains function perfectly and there has never been any indication at the surface that my soil infiltrated past the straw layer on top of the gravel. That paper might work fine.
Good finger system. Allows the soil to absorb all the fluids instead of puddling in one spot. Great idea been doing that since the early 60s. That's the way my father put ours in
@@jonathanfrain1803 Trees usually enjoy a good drink or two of rain water. I saw in another comment someone say that their oaks grow so slowly that the roots won't get there before the septic fails for other causes. Maybe so? 🤷♂
The paper acts as a silt barrier. It slows the early debris with fine particles and as they collect they add to the debris barrier. This allows the rock under the paper to remain open and the pipe to drain.
In South Carolina where I am no one uses pipe and rock anymore. They are using an infiltrator system that uses half round shaped plastic panels that are 3 ft wide and snap together I think they are 4 ft long. You dig a trench 3 ft wide with a smooth flat bottom and lay the panels in snap them together and cover it up. You can haul all the drain field material on the same truck and trailer that you haul the excavator to install it and it doesn't take a lot of manual labor.
Good content Nate. Ive installed several systems over the years. The new ones use chamber or " infiltrator" system. No gravel. Just an underground cave. Some were gravity and some were pressure dose. Anyway what I learned was that the moisture effluent basically relies on evaporation more than the seeping action or perking. Our pumps live in the tank itself. Ive never installed a t in the riser. Cheers from Montana.
Interesting to see the different practices in another region and what the soil conditions allow. Our soils here in New England require large excavations on the fields removing the layers of soil until a glacial till is uncovered. On a 3-5 Bedroom system we typically use anywhere between 80-400 yards of sand in the leaching field. Rather than the paper you guys used we use filter fabric and or pea stone to transition the material before backfill. Great Vid as always!
Yeah Rusty, your the MAN! You better build a compacted stone and 1" minus gravel road so the poop pumper can clean out your tank on a maintained basis without tearing up your yard, and getting the truck stuck and have to be pulled out.
I work in water distribution, repairing water mains, services hydrants etc. When we dig down it's quite apparent that generally only the top foot of soil ever really gets saturated from rain water. Especially once you get into the clay layers. Even when digging up water main breaks that were gushing thousands of gallons of water per minute until the point of being isolated with valves, you can take a scoop of surrounding dirt and hit dry soil just inches away from where the water washed away the rest
Interesting! This is one area where the US and Northern Europe have very different solutions. Here in Sweden we have to install 3-chamber septic tanks, and most are plastic. Also, we use 160 ft2 macadam beds as drain fields (or some plastic modules for more compact solutions), covered with geotextile and often XPS insulation. You are supposed to keep 15 feet to the nearest tree from the edge of the macadam bed.
Im in NE Canada.. I have a 2 chamber septic tank. Then the water is drained naturally (no pump) to my septic field maybe 100 feet or more away. My septic field is a Ecoflo which is just a fiberglass (or plastic unsure at the moment) and have 2 chambers. Best thing is you dont have to move them. Where I live you have to change you septic field every 10-15 years when its the typical sand and such septic field.. I also add bacteria to my septic system every month. Does it work? I like to think so but the product is really well rated and not that expensive.
I'm surprised there are no comments on the fact you have to have an electric pump to pump the tank to the leach bed. I have the exact same problem. When the electric goes out, your tank fills up because the pump is not pumping. I worry about it every time the electric is off for hours. Showers drain, toilets flush, clothes washer emptying to the septic tank. Then what happens? Sits there till the power comes back on. Just something to think about. Or get a house generator. Hopefully, you put your pump in an easily accessible place for maintenance or replacement. Good luck to you, sir. Oh, and keep up the good work.
I have a similar system (jurisdiction told me gravity only systems are not often allowed anymore). It's not as convenient, but it takes a lot of waste water to fill up 1000 gallons. As long as you avoid dumping tons of water (i.e. laundry and showers) down the drain during the outage it's not a huge deal.
I would recommend using a septic root killer regularly. I have seen more than a few systems that have failed when the lines are installed next to trees like that.
I'm in Connecticut, and I'm jealous of your dirt. I can't dig one hand shovel's worth of dirt anywhere ever without hitting a human head sized stone at least.
@@aaroncortez5928 well, we have have to get 42” in for freeze purposes, we are well into hard clay by that time. It’s just that the hard clay is severely rocky. Even if we hit actual solid rock, we still need 42” of depth, so that means hammering or blasting.
I live an hour from EC, right next to a river. Sometimes it seems like 1/3 of the ground is river rocks, some of them head-sized. Makes it not fun to dig post holes. But at least we don't have boulders or shale or any of that nonsense.
Our septic flooded the 2nd day we moved into our forever house. Damn leach field had stopped working; got a pumper out & he reckons the tank hadnt been pumped out since the house was built (in 2000), and that the leach field was so clogged he ened up jetting/ jet cutting eucalyptus roots out. Works fine for now- but will look at putting a more modern system in with a much longer field in (currently, it is only about 12 meters long!), mostly shitty rock/ alluvials/ sandy loam here, so drains great
Around here in GA, most septic contractors these days use infiltrator domes for drain fields. I have 320’ of infiltrator lines for my 5 bedroom house. Video in my library if you wanna see how ours was done.
I understand Reynolds was working in perfect conditions, on a flat piece of property but his work always looks clean. He has good operators and seems to have no wasted energy. Also, the power of editing.
@@drummerboy3377 good to know. I had a hunch it wasn’t just for show. But this is as far as my social media goes. So I will undoubtedly take your word. Much love!
10:51 butyl rubber didn't hold back tree roots after about year 15 so I imagine that silicone will offer a similar lifespan. If you can't wait for butyl rubber rolls for septic then it's also sold in strip rolls to be used on wood porches & wood stairs.
In Idaho you have to have 8" of drain rock under the drain pipe, 6 to 8" of drain rock on top, then either fabric or six to eight inches of straw on that to keep the dirt from filtering into the drain rock and plugging it up. Then you can put dirt on that to level the ground. There are also reg on how much drain field you have to put in depending on residents and bedrooms.
That was so interesting. Especially the drain field. Many years ago I lived in a house built on a steep hill with clay soil. The back garden was also steeply sloped, but because of the clay soil, it wouldn't drain and was always wet. So I hand dug a series of trenches which I half filled with gravel and topped off with soil finally draining into a big soakaway pit filled with rocks. This worked nicely and the garden was no longer wet, but over time the dirt in the trenches washed into the gravel and I was forever topping it up. If we'd had TH-cam in those days I would have known to put fabric over the gravel before backfilling with dirt. Chris Guins, (LetsDig18) puts in a lot of gravel roads, and he says using fabric allows you to get away with a lot less rock, and with a single lane road needing roughly two yards of rock per one yard of road, (estimate based entirely on watching TH-cam videos) that can save you money.
In 1988 the local sewer inspector recommended a "Shallow Trench" system for my property. I'd never heard of such a thing, ... 35 years later, it's still working fine.
The depth of the trench depends on how well water moves through the soil. A sandier soil will drain water quickly while a clay or caliche soil packs very tightly and water drains very slowly through it. In the case of the latter you have to use a much larger area as a drain field to get the same percolation rate as a sandy soil. That or you can plant some salt ceders at the ends of the drain field pipes. Those things will all but suck the water up and as evergreens they will work almost as good in the freezing winter as the summer. A mature salt ceder can process and evaporate up to 200 gallons of water through its needles on a hot day.
Great video. We have septic concrete seepage pits which unfortunately are not allowed anymore. They are very efficient and cheeper to install than a field which in the northeast is costing 30 to 40k these days.
The mighty OAK 🌳 trees roots grow slow. By the time those roots get down deep enough… you’ll be dead and buried. It will be the new owners problem 50 years from now. Don’t worry about it. 😉 Enjoyed the vid. Thanks for sharing. Good luck with the new house, Friend.
As someone who has installed several hundred septic systems, the idea of the craft paper makes no sense to me either. We have always used filter-fabric over the drainrock to keep the backfill dirt from settling into the rock voids and clogging up its free-flowing properties. I’ll never understand the paper to be able to form a crust in any type of soil as the trench is always going to be saturated with moisture and the moisture will break down any sort of crust that could form.
Quite the drain field! We had to put in a new system before we sold our last house, was very similar to your setup except it was all gravity fed. Our new house site is on ledge, so the septic system is engineered differently. The tank drains into an enviro septic system, which is basically a series of pipes wrapped in an organic mesh type filter, with larger pipes surrounding that, and it’s all sitting on special sand. Not exactly sure how it works, and I’m a bit skeptical about it over the long term, but I guess we’ll just wait and see.
if you are going to have a pump in the system, might as well have done a mound system. pumped mound systems go uphill from the pump tank and use a pressure distribution manifold so that all effluent is distributed equally throughout the field. although your pump will get the fluid out of the tank, its basically a gravity system and as such the parts of the field closest to the tank/pump will see the most effluent and the parts furthest away very little to none. The pumped mound style systems allow you to make the smallest distribution field and likely would have allowed no loss of trees either.
I live in Ohio and built my house in 2000 along with the septic system, the health department wanted me to install a mound system but I wanted something with basically no maintenance. They had the installer place a dosing station (a fifty gallon crock with a pump) after the tank, it had a float switch and would dump the entire fifty gallons all at once. The idea being that instead of just letting the affluent slowly drain out constantly, it would flood the entire leach field all at once and let it dry out a bit in between flooding it. Seems to work ok, it’s been 23 years and counting with no problems or wet spots in my lawn.
@@Hoaxer51 yes, exactly. mine is slightly different in that it has a pump tank as large as the septic tank but it "doses" the entire field all at once instead of the drip, drip, drip to certain parts of field in gravity based system. pump has a float and sits in the ~1500 gallon pump tank seperate from the ~1250 gallon septic tank (where solids settle). because of my large pump tank my field gets dosed like once a day so there is more resting than dosing. its 35 years old and operates as if it was brand new. lawn in/around mound is never wet. its the way to go and if it ever goes bad, i would get the exact same thing again. best i can tell, only maintence would be if the pump broke to have it replaced. its got a pump alarm in the basement if the float goes too high in the tank (indicating the pump isn't working).
For us in Dominica we build concrete block septic tanks or use those huge plastic ones and connect it to the soak away hole. Soak away hole is dug and filled with rocks then backfilled with dirt. Size depends on the number of people.
Really cool, I've always thought septic systems are cool. Especially when you start including the crazy new greywater stuff for landscaping and what not.
Hey Nate-off topic here but Spencer Lewis has a great video on having a good tax management strategy as well as a clear plan on how to build wealth in the trades. The title is " No One Explains This... The Truth on Paying Taxes & Building Wealth in The Trades " He'd be a great interview
I don't believe there's any easy solution to prevent that unless you take out all trees. On my system, it was designed with access holes at the end of each trench. That way you can do a "squirt test" by turning on the pump and verifying flow through the entire drain field. You'd be able to quickly diagnose clogs/root issues that way.
In this instance you should only be concerned if they are edible fruit trees, it’ll turn your apples into crap-apples. 💩🍏 That is purely sarcasm. 😂🤦♂️
It depends on the type of tree as some do have deeper root systems, but most of the time it's a good way to kill them. They want their roots to be in the same soil type and depth that make for good septic drainage. Especially on the one they surrounded, most of the root system is likely severed.
In my neck of the woods, we’re on the edge of suburban neighborhoods and plain old countryside. The closest sewer line is a mile and a half away. It’s all septic.
@@ustabee6091 I live on a lake. The 'water' coming from my treatment plant can be discharged into the lake. The treatment plant cost a little more than an old septic tank because of the air pump required but much less to install as field lines are not required. I recently had mine pumped for the first time after 25 years of use and it had very little stuff in it as the O2 breaks down almost everything except dirt. The air pump does draw a little electricity but not much.
You're lucky..... In our area, septic drain fields have to be designed by approved engineers costing $20,000 or more for the total field. The pipes in the field are 12 inch culvert pipes with 24 inch sandbed beneath them. It has to be 10 feet above mean water table ( bottom of sand bed) which causes drain fields to have a large mound the length and width of the field and nothing can be done on that mound except mowing the grass
Here in central florida i see a lot of systems installed with a plastic arch system that looks like half a metal culvert and i dont usually see any pipes installed either
Is it an aerobic septic system? Used to live in a house here in Australia that had one - it had a regular septic tank and then a second one that the effluent overflowed into after the solids settled out. The second tank was divided in quadrants that had baffles in them for bacteria to grow on and had an aerator pump to pump air into the effluent so the bacteria would digest the nutrients in their aerobic metabolic mode, producing CO2 rather than the anaerobic mode that produces methane and nasty smells. When the effluent made it to the final quadrant it would be pumped out, dosed with chlorine and used to irrigate of the lawns and gardens. Mind you, we don't have to contend with freezing temperatures here so that may be why you have an underground drain field if you do have an aerobic system.
Interesting looking at how different states have different regulations. Not trying to be a keyboard expert so don’t take it as such. Here in Arkansas our field lines have to naturally settle for around a year before you can slick them off. We also use a soil separator, it’s almost like a super thick cotton material that you can see through. It’s non degradable that allows water to permeate through soil but not allow the soil to get in the perf pipe. Also one thing that might make it a little easier on you. This is just how we do it but you can skin a cat a lot of ways. We dig the trench level and when we lay our pipe we use 1/2” rebar and tie wire to fasten our pipe. You can shoot the pipe while pecking the rebar down kinda like you would setting rebar to pour a footing until you hit your desired height. Here we have to drop our pipe 2” every 100’ so that system works good for us and rebar is cheap here. Also curious, what type of distribution device did you use? D-Box, spider valve? I couldn’t see it in the video. Great video btw!
The paper over the rock is to prevent the soil from working into the rock and plugging it. Putting the leach field that close to trees will drastically shorten its lifespan. Because the tree roots will grow into the field and into the leach pipes and clog them. Where I live in California we have stopped using leach rock. It’s an added expense. We now use infiltrator half domes. That creates a void 18inx18in by however long the engineer design the system to be. They go in quite and are less costly than tons and tons of leach rock. The company I work for we do quite a few each year
WRT to Rusty -- I went into Ace Hardware and picked up replacement workings for a toilet. The gentleman who was working the counter said "Oh yeah! That's a 2 hour job." Then he looked at my 2 children - about Rusty's age - who were with me, and said "4 if you have help."
1:39 woah that chimney almost ruined that guys life! Scary how it can go from a great day to your last day in an instant! I'm sure my perspective is a little off but it looks close!
That amount of ground water would sketch me out for a septic. Seems like there is little pitch on the property to keep the ground/ surface water from saturating the leach field and causing issues. Hopefully the soil has really good drainage by the field.
i ve used a type of foil that holds the earth from geting in the rock area ans clogs it making it unable to drain properly..thar foil is called here geotextile...
It's gonna plug up from the inside debri or settling from the outside..it's a matter of time.. the Legnth of the field and the amount of usage (family size) are the prime factors of usable lifetime. Other factors are to eliminate problems that could shorten this timespan ..IMO
silicone definitely is similar to a putty, but that depends on having wet or dry hands.. Wet hands almost repel the silicone but dry hands stick to it and smear it all over. Luckily you were wet!
Hmmm ... Great work ... as an Englishman (and 5 year watcher of EC) can I make the following (jealous) observation please .... Oregon with 95,997 square mile of land and only 4,246,000 people, has only 0,044 people per square mile. But here in the UK we have a population status of 70,000,000 people and 0,701 people per square mile ... Sadly England is even worse at 1,125 people per square mile average .... imagine the sewerage/drain volumes compared to this small house plot!
I dig my lines and septic by hand. By myself with 1 other guy take like 3 days. Pay a guy with a tractor 600$ to dig the big hole. Hook up all the pipe in an hour or 2. Get inspection. Get paid. On to the next one. Obviously I need to up my prices lmao
I thought you had to pass a 'perk test' before you could install a septic tank. Your water table appeared to be about 18 in. down. Where I live, you failed. Can you please explain?
Where I live in WA state, they don't do perk tests anymore. They instead dig test pits and verify soil type/conditions before designing what system to install. It's possible they did this a while ago and include it.
It’s been my experience that you will find in the next 3-5 years that you have killed most of the remaining trees close to the trench. Not because of the septic system but because of the trench you dug.
That's an older tech with the holes on bottom of pipe...... works well and lasts a long time, unless you have to have the tank pumped every 3 years, doing that kills the bacteria and they die off and start plugging up those holes with a slimey slug and can't drain well! The paper acts as a weed barrier and actually will last for years.... but putting a system near trees is not a good idea..... roots do a lot of damage!
So how come they can drive over the drain field with a skid steer? I've been told to never drive over a drain field in anything larger than a small riding mower.
In the intro, I first heard "and then we'll finish it" as "and then we'll give a shit." I thought, geeze, nate, you're probably being too hard on yourself.
Lol, the electric conduit is full of water too. Emergency poop line? Lol. How much water is there? Will the ground water over fill it??? I'm a city boy with city sewer service on all my houses
I don’t understand where all the water is coming from as you’re digging at your lids. If that is ground water, would you have the same situation at your leach field? If so, here in PA that situation would never be approved for a leach field system because your leachate would be in the groundwater. Here, that would necessitate a sand mound drain field,raised above the the surface level, where the leachate would never contact groundwater. A much more expensive system
I appreciate the videos of Nate getting work done like this. For a guy like myself who has not grown up working in the trades, it is more relatable than watching Scott crank out hip rafters without even thinking about it. Great work Nate. Thanks for the video!
Sewer effluent is a major magnet for tree roots. I give it less than 10 years before the drain lines and trenches are root bound being that close to mature trees. A certified engineered system and site survey is worth every penny in hindsight .......... the hard clay and groundwater at 2 feet is also troubling.
That's not ground water. I've dealt with clay just like this. Percolation rate is really slow. So when you get a heavy rain the soil is really saturated. You dig a hole and the water starts escaping the soil into your hole
It would be nice to have a play list for projects such as this. I have been in the building trades my entire adult life (74 years old) and there is nothing more interesting to me than seeing a project progress from start to finish. I just finished the spec house series and it was sort of easy to follow, but I am struggling to see this project in some order of progression. I sure enjoy you and your Dad's channel, so much information that I enjoy.
Deciduous tree roots are brutal. Over 25 years or so, I cleared all the leafy trees well away from the field, at least 75 feet. I've found evergreen roots are much more localized. This episode brought back so many traumatic memories of my septic install--as in a 1000% increase in permit fees which for the first time in my rural area included an inspection!!, having to take perc tests on dirt recently saturated by the spring melt of 4 feet of snow (unfair I said to the health inspector, to no avail) to having 3 pump-out chamber pumps fail in the first 2 years. GK
$80K?! I guess I should go back into the septic installation business, the most I ever charged for a difficult one was $12,000. I never had much faith in the craft, or as we called it rosin paper. It would tear upon backfilling and if it got wet before backfilling, about useless. Straw or a weedblock type fiberous barrier is far more durable. BTW, the silica dust inhaled during the stone placement is a concern. I appreciate the fast motion video, makes me glad I don't have to endure it anymore. Great video!
I installed my own 2 years ago. 1500 gallon concrete tank, same risers and lids was about $2000. 200 feet of leach field with 4" perforated SDR pipe around $300. 150 feet of 4" non perforated SDR from tank to leach field $225. A crapton of drain rock $1200, I could have used cheaper rock. And like $150 for thick landscape fabric for the leach field. I did it in less than a week in really hard soil. There is no way this one was $80k.
@@MrJramirex, In Ohio you have to be licensed to install a septic system and it has to be inspected before you bury anything. The price on materials is probably pretty close to those here.
My installer just put landscape fabric over the rock in my drain field
@Tim Finch That sucks. California lets you do pretty much everything but drilling a well as Owner/Builder. The county's Environmental Health division came to inspect my install after all the rock was at the appropriate depth but before backfilling with dirt.
The project did not cost 80K! Wondering where you came up with that number?
BTW, 45 years ago I put hundreds of feet of French drain in my yard to catch natural springs that would appear each spring and saturate my yard. The French drain used perforated pipe laid directly on the soil bottom of the ditch, then the pipe covered with 16” of clean gravel. Some had suggested 4” of gravel below the pipe but an old gentleman from the old US Soil Conservation Service said no, you want the perforated pipe laying on the bottom of the ditch because otherwise that 4” of gravel would need to fill with water before it entered the pipe AND that 4” of water in the gravel would likely just follow your pipe to its outlet, making the pipe essentially useless. Made perfect sense to me…get the water in the pipe first, water takes the path of least resistance and the gravel drains groundwater directly TO the pipe! But now to the point I wanted to make…we put a layer of straw on top of the gravel before we backfilled with soil. 45 years later my French drains function perfectly and there has never been any indication at the surface that my soil infiltrated past the straw layer on top of the gravel. That paper might work fine.
Good finger system. Allows the soil to absorb all the fluids instead of puddling in one spot. Great idea been doing that since the early 60s. That's the way my father put ours in
We never, ever, put our drain fields anywhere near big trees in the midwest. Even from many yards away tree roots find there way in around here.
I wonder if it’s a non-issue in Oregon because they get so much rain.
@@jonathanfrain1803 Trees usually enjoy a good drink or two of rain water.
I saw in another comment someone say that their oaks grow so slowly that the roots won't get there before the septic fails for other causes. Maybe so? 🤷♂
I give it maybe five years. Roots grow twice the foliage of the tree. About 3-5 inches per year without fertilizer. Septic is fertilizer.
Same as in Australia. No way those trees would be left remaining. Be interesting how long it took until tree roots took control of the Aggie.
I agree, I have had to dig up fairly recently installed 4”soil pipe because tree roots found their way in, the pipe was a solid mass of roots inside.
The paper acts as a silt barrier. It slows the early debris with fine particles and as they collect they add to the debris barrier. This allows the rock under the paper to remain open and the pipe to drain.
exactly, without the paper within a short time rain would wash fine dirt out of the soil in between the washed rock and simply clog everything.
In South Carolina where I am no one uses pipe and rock anymore. They are using an infiltrator system that uses half round shaped plastic panels that are 3 ft wide and snap together I think they are 4 ft long. You dig a trench 3 ft wide with a smooth flat bottom and lay the panels in snap them together and cover it up. You can haul all the drain field material on the same truck and trailer that you haul the excavator to install it and it doesn't take a lot of manual labor.
Good content Nate. Ive installed several systems over the years. The new ones use chamber or " infiltrator" system. No gravel. Just an underground cave. Some were gravity and some were pressure dose. Anyway what I learned was that the moisture effluent basically relies on evaporation more than the seeping action or perking. Our pumps live in the tank itself. Ive never installed a t in the riser. Cheers from Montana.
Installed a chamber field in clay soil about 15 years ago. Failed and replaced within 12 years with conventional gravel and perforated pipe.
Interesting to see the different practices in another region and what the soil conditions allow. Our soils here in New England require large excavations on the fields removing the layers of soil until a glacial till is uncovered. On a 3-5 Bedroom system we typically use anywhere between 80-400 yards of sand in the leaching field. Rather than the paper you guys used we use filter fabric and or pea stone to transition the material before backfill. Great Vid as always!
Yeah Rusty, your the MAN! You better build a compacted stone and 1" minus gravel road so the poop pumper can clean out your tank on a maintained basis without tearing up your yard, and getting the truck stuck and have to be pulled out.
I work in water distribution, repairing water mains, services hydrants etc. When we dig down it's quite apparent that generally only the top foot of soil ever really gets saturated from rain water. Especially once you get into the clay layers. Even when digging up water main breaks that were gushing thousands of gallons of water per minute until the point of being isolated with valves, you can take a scoop of surrounding dirt and hit dry soil just inches away from where the water washed away the rest
So that craft paper is just enough for the ground to compact and roots to establish and keep the soil from washing down into the rocks.
Interesting! This is one area where the US and Northern Europe have very different solutions. Here in Sweden we have to install 3-chamber septic tanks, and most are plastic. Also, we use 160 ft2 macadam beds as drain fields (or some plastic modules for more compact solutions), covered with geotextile and often XPS insulation. You are supposed to keep 15 feet to the nearest tree from the edge of the macadam bed.
Im in NE Canada.. I have a 2 chamber septic tank. Then the water is drained naturally (no pump) to my septic field maybe 100 feet or more away. My septic field is a Ecoflo which is just a fiberglass (or plastic unsure at the moment) and have 2 chambers. Best thing is you dont have to move them. Where I live you have to change you septic field every 10-15 years when its the typical sand and such septic field.. I also add bacteria to my septic system every month. Does it work? I like to think so but the product is really well rated and not that expensive.
I'm surprised there are no comments on the fact you have to have an electric pump to pump the tank to the leach bed. I have the exact same problem. When the electric goes out, your tank fills up because the pump is not pumping. I worry about it every time the electric is off for hours. Showers drain, toilets flush, clothes washer emptying to the septic tank. Then what happens? Sits there till the power comes back on. Just something to think about. Or get a house generator. Hopefully, you put your pump in an easily accessible place for maintenance or replacement. Good luck to you, sir. Oh, and keep up the good work.
I have a similar system (jurisdiction told me gravity only systems are not often allowed anymore). It's not as convenient, but it takes a lot of waste water to fill up 1000 gallons. As long as you avoid dumping tons of water (i.e. laundry and showers) down the drain during the outage it's not a huge deal.
I would recommend using a septic root killer regularly. I have seen more than a few systems that have failed when the lines are installed next to trees like that.
I'm in Connecticut, and I'm jealous of your dirt. I can't dig one hand shovel's worth of dirt anywhere ever without hitting a human head sized stone at least.
I used to live in an area with clay soil then in an area with sandstone and now sand. Each has unique methods for excavation and it's own problems.
You want bedrock no deeper than 2 ft so that way you don't have to pack in all the dirt. It's good having rock imo
@@aaroncortez5928 well, we have have to get 42” in for freeze purposes, we are well into hard clay by that time. It’s just that the hard clay is severely rocky. Even if we hit actual solid rock, we still need 42” of depth, so that means hammering or blasting.
The excavators in your area have it so easy regarding soil conditions. Here in Southwest Missouri it's roooccckkky.
I live an hour from EC, right next to a river. Sometimes it seems like 1/3 of the ground is river rocks, some of them head-sized. Makes it not fun to dig post holes. But at least we don't have boulders or shale or any of that nonsense.
Our septic flooded the 2nd day we moved into our forever house.
Damn leach field had stopped working; got a pumper out & he reckons the tank hadnt been pumped out since the house was built (in 2000), and that the leach field was so clogged he ened up jetting/ jet cutting eucalyptus roots out.
Works fine for now- but will look at putting a more modern system in with a much longer field in (currently, it is only about 12 meters long!), mostly shitty rock/ alluvials/ sandy loam here, so drains great
Around here in GA, most septic contractors these days use infiltrator domes for drain fields. I have 320’ of infiltrator lines for my 5 bedroom house. Video in my library if you wanna see how ours was done.
I understand Reynolds was working in perfect conditions, on a flat piece of property but his work always looks clean. He has good operators and seems to have no wasted energy. Also, the power of editing.
If you look at his instagram account, every job he does looks this clean. 1st class operator.
He really is just that good!
@@drummerboy3377 good to know. I had a hunch it wasn’t just for show. But this is as far as my social media goes. So I will undoubtedly take your word. Much love!
It is not just paper, it is impregnated with rosin, and yes, it is used to cap the gravel on drain fields
12:08 Sounds like Rusty did his job perfectly!
10:51 butyl rubber didn't hold back tree roots after about year 15 so I imagine that silicone will offer a similar lifespan. If you can't wait for butyl rubber rolls for septic then it's also sold in strip rolls to be used on wood porches & wood stairs.
In Idaho you have to have 8" of drain rock under the drain pipe, 6 to 8" of drain rock on top, then either fabric or six to eight inches of straw on that to keep the dirt from filtering into the drain rock and plugging it up. Then you can put dirt on that to level the ground. There are also reg on how much drain field you have to put in depending on residents and bedrooms.
Nate,
Really like your editing style, and thanks for making a great video.
That was so interesting. Especially the drain field. Many years ago I lived in a house built on a steep hill with clay soil. The back garden was also steeply sloped, but because of the clay soil, it wouldn't drain and was always wet. So I hand dug a series of trenches which I half filled with gravel and topped off with soil finally draining into a big soakaway pit filled with rocks. This worked nicely and the garden was no longer wet, but over time the dirt in the trenches washed into the gravel and I was forever topping it up. If we'd had TH-cam in those days I would have known to put fabric over the gravel before backfilling with dirt.
Chris Guins, (LetsDig18) puts in a lot of gravel roads, and he says using fabric allows you to get away with a lot less rock, and with a single lane road needing roughly two yards of rock per one yard of road, (estimate based entirely on watching TH-cam videos) that can save you money.
I love my Aerobic system . No lateral lines to deal with
In 1988 the local sewer inspector recommended a "Shallow Trench" system for my property. I'd never heard of such a thing, ... 35 years later, it's still working fine.
The depth of the trench depends on how well water moves through the soil. A sandier soil will drain water quickly while a clay or caliche soil packs very tightly and water drains very slowly through it. In the case of the latter you have to use a much larger area as a drain field to get the same percolation rate as a sandy soil.
That or you can plant some salt ceders at the ends of the drain field pipes. Those things will all but suck the water up and as evergreens they will work almost as good in the freezing winter as the summer. A mature salt ceder can process and evaporate up to 200 gallons of water through its needles on a hot day.
Great video. We have septic concrete seepage pits which unfortunately are not allowed anymore. They are very efficient and cheeper to install than a field which in the northeast is costing 30 to 40k these days.
The mighty OAK 🌳 trees roots grow slow. By the time those roots get down deep enough… you’ll be dead and buried. It will be the new owners problem 50 years from now. Don’t worry about it. 😉 Enjoyed the vid. Thanks for sharing. Good luck with the new house, Friend.
As someone who has installed several hundred septic systems, the idea of the craft paper makes no sense to me either. We have always used filter-fabric over the drainrock to keep the backfill dirt from settling into the rock voids and clogging up its free-flowing properties.
I’ll never understand the paper to be able to form a crust in any type of soil as the trench is always going to be saturated with moisture and the moisture will break down any sort of crust that could form.
thats what we used too
S Florida it was tar paper/felt. Sandy soil, less the 1/4 the size of this drain field.
washington state, back in the 60's we used newspaper over the gravel... never seemed to have a problem.
Quite the drain field! We had to put in a new system before we sold our last house, was very similar to your setup except it was all gravity fed. Our new house site is on ledge, so the septic system is engineered differently. The tank drains into an enviro septic system, which is basically a series of pipes wrapped in an organic mesh type filter, with larger pipes surrounding that, and it’s all sitting on special sand. Not exactly sure how it works, and I’m a bit skeptical about it over the long term, but I guess we’ll just wait and see.
if you are going to have a pump in the system, might as well have done a mound system. pumped mound systems go uphill from the pump tank and use a pressure distribution manifold so that all effluent is distributed equally throughout the field. although your pump will get the fluid out of the tank, its basically a gravity system and as such the parts of the field closest to the tank/pump will see the most effluent and the parts furthest away very little to none. The pumped mound style systems allow you to make the smallest distribution field and likely would have allowed no loss of trees either.
I live in Ohio and built my house in 2000 along with the septic system, the health department wanted me to install a mound system but I wanted something with basically no maintenance. They had the installer place a dosing station (a fifty gallon crock with a pump) after the tank, it had a float switch and would dump the entire fifty gallons all at once. The idea being that instead of just letting the affluent slowly drain out constantly, it would flood the entire leach field all at once and let it dry out a bit in between flooding it. Seems to work ok, it’s been 23 years and counting with no problems or wet spots in my lawn.
@@Hoaxer51 yes, exactly. mine is slightly different in that it has a pump tank as large as the septic tank but it "doses" the entire field all at once instead of the drip, drip, drip to certain parts of field in gravity based system. pump has a float and sits in the ~1500 gallon pump tank seperate from the ~1250 gallon septic tank (where solids settle). because of my large pump tank my field gets dosed like once a day so there is more resting than dosing. its 35 years old and operates as if it was brand new. lawn in/around mound is never wet. its the way to go and if it ever goes bad, i would get the exact same thing again. best i can tell, only maintence would be if the pump broke to have it replaced. its got a pump alarm in the basement if the float goes too high in the tank (indicating the pump isn't working).
For us in Dominica we build concrete block septic tanks or use those huge plastic ones and connect it to the soak away hole. Soak away hole is dug and filled with rocks then backfilled with dirt. Size depends on the number of people.
Really cool, I've always thought septic systems are cool. Especially when you start including the crazy new greywater stuff for landscaping and what not.
Hey Nate-off topic here but Spencer Lewis has a great video on having a good tax management strategy as well as a clear plan on how to build wealth in the trades. The title is " No One Explains This... The Truth on Paying Taxes & Building Wealth in The Trades " He'd be a great interview
The paper is to create a barrier between the leach line and silt. So that the silt can't travel through the rock and plug the line.
I'm concerned with root intrusion from the oak trees into the drain field.
I don't believe there's any easy solution to prevent that unless you take out all trees. On my system, it was designed with access holes at the end of each trench. That way you can do a "squirt test" by turning on the pump and verifying flow through the entire drain field. You'd be able to quickly diagnose clogs/root issues that way.
Not very likely with well established trees.
In this instance you should only be concerned if they are edible fruit trees, it’ll turn your apples into crap-apples. 💩🍏
That is purely sarcasm. 😂🤦♂️
@@michael-michaelmotorcycle I think that's a good one
In Hunterdon county NJ ( north west NJ). Had to dig hole 20 x40 12’ deep fill with sand the stone with pipe before putting dirt back
Code here allowed for tar paper or straw over the drain field gravel. I used straw 35 years ago when I installed our system which still works.
My area is clay too. My 4 field lines were 50 ft each from my tank.
Are there considerations for digging a drain field near tree roots? I always had figured it would be a nono, but not really sure about it.
It depends on the type of tree as some do have deeper root systems, but most of the time it's a good way to kill them. They want their roots to be in the same soil type and depth that make for good septic drainage.
Especially on the one they surrounded, most of the root system is likely severed.
No one uses a septic tank these days, we use a treatment plant. No filed lines required and you can dump/use the water anywhere.
In my neck of the woods, we’re on the edge of suburban neighborhoods and plain old countryside. The closest sewer line is a mile and a half away.
It’s all septic.
@@ustabee6091 I live on a lake. The 'water' coming from my treatment plant can be discharged into the lake. The treatment plant cost a little more than an old septic tank because of the air pump required but much less to install as field lines are not required. I recently had mine pumped for the first time after 25 years of use and it had very little stuff in it as the O2 breaks down almost everything except dirt. The air pump does draw a little electricity but not much.
You're lucky.....
In our area, septic drain fields have to be designed by approved engineers costing $20,000 or more for the total field. The pipes in the field are 12 inch culvert pipes with 24 inch sandbed beneath them. It has to be 10 feet above mean water table ( bottom of sand bed) which causes drain fields to have a large mound the length and width of the field and nothing can be done on that mound except mowing the grass
Very good job on this video. Good camera work and narration describing an interesting job. Too bad about having to pump uphill.
Here in central florida i see a lot of systems installed with a plastic arch system that looks like half a metal culvert and i dont usually see any pipes installed either
Is it an aerobic septic system? Used to live in a house here in Australia that had one - it had a regular septic tank and then a second one that the effluent overflowed into after the solids settled out. The second tank was divided in quadrants that had baffles in them for bacteria to grow on and had an aerator pump to pump air into the effluent so the bacteria would digest the nutrients in their aerobic metabolic mode, producing CO2 rather than the anaerobic mode that produces methane and nasty smells. When the effluent made it to the final quadrant it would be pumped out, dosed with chlorine and used to irrigate of the lawns and gardens.
Mind you, we don't have to contend with freezing temperatures here so that may be why you have an underground drain field if you do have an aerobic system.
Decomp slows down drastically underground. The paper keeps fine loose soil from washing into the rock beneath.
Little does, "Rusty" know he will soon be in the mix, play it seems now...tanks for sharing
Interesting looking at how different states have different regulations. Not trying to be a keyboard expert so don’t take it as such. Here in Arkansas our field lines have to naturally settle for around a year before you can slick them off. We also use a soil separator, it’s almost like a super thick cotton material that you can see through. It’s non degradable that allows water to permeate through soil but not allow the soil to get in the perf pipe. Also one thing that might make it a little easier on you. This is just how we do it but you can skin a cat a lot of ways. We dig the trench level and when we lay our pipe we use 1/2” rebar and tie wire to fasten our pipe. You can shoot the pipe while pecking the rebar down kinda like you would setting rebar to pour a footing until you hit your desired height. Here we have to drop our pipe 2” every 100’ so that system works good for us and rebar is cheap here. Also curious, what type of distribution device did you use? D-Box, spider valve? I couldn’t see it in the video. Great video btw!
I'd find a bucket! $80k.....wow...love the channel!!
Where did you hear that it cost 80K? Not the case!
The paper over the rock is to prevent the soil from working into the rock and plugging it. Putting the leach field that close to trees will drastically shorten its lifespan. Because the tree roots will grow into the field and into the leach pipes and clog them. Where I live in California we have stopped using leach rock. It’s an added expense. We now use infiltrator half domes. That creates a void 18inx18in by however long the engineer design the system to be. They go in quite and are less costly than tons and tons of leach rock. The company I work for we do quite a few each year
WRT to Rusty -- I went into Ace Hardware and picked up replacement workings for a toilet. The gentleman who was working the counter said "Oh yeah! That's a 2 hour job." Then he looked at my 2 children - about Rusty's age - who were with me, and said "4 if you have help."
i was told by my septic designer not to have any trees within 20' unless i wanted to rip up in 5-10 years when the tree roots wreck havoc.
1:39 woah that chimney almost ruined that guys life! Scary how it can go from a great day to your last day in an instant! I'm sure my perspective is a little off but it looks close!
That amount of ground water would sketch me out for a septic. Seems like there is little pitch on the property to keep the ground/ surface water from saturating the leach field and causing issues. Hopefully the soil has really good drainage by the field.
I'm loving your contributions to the channel!
Keep up the good work
i ve used a type of foil that holds the earth from geting in the rock area ans clogs it making it unable to drain properly..thar foil is called here geotextile...
It's gonna plug up from the inside debri or settling from the outside..it's a matter of time.. the Legnth of the field and the amount of usage (family size) are the prime factors of usable lifetime. Other factors are to eliminate problems that could shorten this timespan ..IMO
If oak decline is as much an issue out there as back east most of those oak trees will be dying or dead before the drain field needs to be replaced.
silicone definitely is similar to a putty, but that depends on having wet or dry hands.. Wet hands almost repel the silicone but dry hands stick to it and smear it all over. Luckily you were wet!
Love your work 👍
Catch Ya Next Time!
I installed my septic system a year ago I had to cut down all trees around it by 20ft as roots would clog it up quick and cause it to fail
If you have portal framing in the house please go over it
Hmmm ... Great work ... as an Englishman (and 5 year watcher of EC) can I make the following (jealous) observation please ....
Oregon with 95,997 square mile of land and only 4,246,000 people, has only 0,044 people per square mile.
But here in the UK we have a population status of 70,000,000 people and 0,701 people per square mile ...
Sadly England is even worse at 1,125 people per square mile average .... imagine the sewerage/drain volumes compared to this small house plot!
It's OK ..... We can flush it into the sea every time we get heavy rain! (not a joke)
Looking good so far
What grass seed mix did you use? Something from the DC Co-Op?
That one oak tree will absolutely flourish. It will be well watered with nutrient rich water.
I had a dream EC was breakdancing at my highschool graduation...
Great soil!
I dig my lines and septic by hand. By myself with 1 other guy take like 3 days. Pay a guy with a tractor 600$ to dig the big hole. Hook up all the pipe in an hour or 2. Get inspection. Get paid. On to the next one. Obviously I need to up my prices lmao
They've used kraft paper, news paper, tar paper any kind of paper as a building material since there was paper
Why did water pour out of the electrical conduit as you cut into it?
I'm surprised they didn't design with those black plastic dome stuff.
I thought you had to pass a 'perk test' before you could install a septic tank. Your water table appeared to be about 18 in. down. Where I live, you failed. Can you please explain?
Where I live in WA state, they don't do perk tests anymore. They instead dig test pits and verify soil type/conditions before designing what system to install. It's possible they did this a while ago and include it.
@@israels6189 where I live in Washington state perk tests are required.
It’s been my experience that you will find in the next 3-5 years that you have killed most of the remaining trees close to the trench. Not because of the septic system but because of the trench you dug.
Any reason to go with rock and pipe over infiltrator?
Good one
That's an older tech with the holes on bottom of pipe...... works well and lasts a long time, unless you have to have the tank pumped every 3 years, doing that kills the bacteria and they die off and start plugging up those holes with a slimey slug and can't drain well! The paper acts as a weed barrier and actually will last for years.... but putting a system near trees is not a good idea..... roots do a lot of damage!
Are you documenting this build on another channel somewhere?
So how come they can drive over the drain field with a skid steer? I've been told to never drive over a drain field in anything larger than a small riding mower.
An aerobic system would have saved the trees.
One other point .. Why didnt you cut the plug off and add more wire? new plug..cost and labor WAY lower imo
When I was a kid my uncle put tar paper over the rock not just paper.
In a very few years, those oak trees roots are going to be choking those lines shut.
Im really suprised the roots dont reek havoc on those pipes filled with water
"Wreak havoc ". Reek is what the septic tank is gonna smell like
In the intro, I first heard "and then we'll finish it" as "and then we'll give a shit." I thought, geeze, nate, you're probably being too hard on yourself.
I would have put Waterstop concrete to seal that gasket on to the tank
Lol, the electric conduit is full of water too. Emergency poop line? Lol.
How much water is there? Will the ground water over fill it??? I'm a city boy with city sewer service on all my houses
I'll have to go back and watch this video again and try to understand what problem you were trying to solve?
Has Mr. EC framed the house?
I don’t understand where all the water is coming from as you’re digging at your lids. If that is ground water, would you have the same situation at your leach field? If so, here in PA that situation would never be approved for a leach field system because your leachate would be in the groundwater. Here, that would necessitate a sand mound drain field,raised above the the surface level, where the leachate would never contact groundwater. A much more expensive system
Those oak trees. What a shame! Probably would have been good at absorbing the waste water.
That’s the time to do repairs or changes to a pump station, before the poo is involved.💩
The white pipe with holes in the bottom is called a French Drain. It's used to move ground water away from where it's laid.
Nice