Not sure if I was as thrilled as Dan was with the huge dirt piles in the yard. My brothers first reaction was “lets ride pit bikes on it!”, but regardless of the mess, it needed to be done! Prior to purchasing this reno property, we knew that the current septic system was no longer up to code. It was not a danger to health or the environment but system was done to the building codes of the early 90’s, mottled soil level requirements were now different. At some point through the years the city changed the codes and now requires new septics to be put in whenever a home is sold or “changes hands” to bring them back up to code. Many sellers do this prior to selling as it can greatly inhibit the sale of a property but, of course, this was a bank owned home and the bank refused to do this for us.

Adding a new septic system can wreak havoc on your yard! An extremely large portion of it needs to be dug up in order to install the new unit. We had been waiting to do any landscaping as we knew it was going to be ripped up anyways. Septic systems are used in place of public sewer systems to remove contaminants from drain water coming from a household. There are 2 main types of residential septic systems; mound systems and conventional systems(drain fields). Mound systems are used when the water table is too high to go below the surface and they are exactly what the name describes, a mound in your yard. They are hard to hide and can look out of place. Fortunately we were able to go the conventional route and the system would not change the look of the yard, it is basically invisible.

The start of the process begins with finding a good septic system contractor. Dan knows some great people in the construction business and we hired a local company whom we’ve know for years to complete the project. They first drained the old system which was no longer needed. A lot of large equipment is used when doing septics, fun to watch if you can appreciate that sort of thing! Growing up around tractors, mainly used to build dirt bike tracks, I can appreciate the skill it takes to run equipment like this.

Different layers of soil, gravel and plastic/fabric sheeting is used in a septic system. These layers help with different parts of the function of the septic system such as drainage and keeping ground water safe from the waste.  A septic system can range in price from $10k to $20k, hard to swallow when you really can’t see the thing or appreciate its benefits (at least if you’ve never had a problem with one!). If you had a septic malfunction then you know the headache it can cause!

Septic companies generally repair the yard where the new septic was put in, black dirt and grass seed or sod is laid at the end of the project. If you water diligently then your lawn can be back to normal quickly!