We live in an unincorporated part of the county. We are not connected to the city's sewer system at this point and time. We rely on a septic system to handle the waste produced by the household.
We have lived in the same house for about 25 years and have had our septic tank pumped out about 4 times. 3 of those times were early on in our residence here. Why? We had three small children and I was forever washing clothes, sheets, you name it I was washing it. The wash water from the washing machine would overload the septic system so we had to have it pumped out.
Eventually, we took the washing machine off of the primary septic system and installed a separate but smaller drain field to handle the runoff from the washing machine. This took a great deal of stress off of the primary septic system.
So, thinking back to the LAST time we had the system pumped out, hubby and I really could not remember. Yes, it had been that long. At least 10 years. That's not good in the land of septic systems. About 2 weeks ago, we called around and priced the cost of having the septic tank pumped out. The prices ranged from 250 dollars to 375 dollars! Yikes. The price had gone up considerably since we had last had it pumped out. At that time ( at least 10 years ago) it was about 125 dollars.
We chose the company that charged 250 dollars. The price was right and they had a good track record. ( They had pumped out my parents tank about a year ago). When the guy arrived and got started, he let me know that we had called him just in time! The tank was "full" of solids. This was not a good thing. The solids could prevent the drain field from working properly in the very near future.
That was 2 weeks ago, and so far the system seems to be working just fine. We regularly add RID-X to keep the bacteria at a proper level and are hoping to keep the original system in good working order.
I have not priced the cost of replacing the system, but I am pretty darn sure that it is VERY expensive.
