slow drain field

[fnlyfree]

I recently had an issue with my drain field. We had a pretty heavy rain and I noticed water bubbling up out of the ground near a pipe in my back yard. I believe the pipe is for field line inspection purposes, not sure. I have 3 of these pipes in different locations in my yard. Each pipe has a 3" pvc plug in it. During this instance, water was coming out of the ground beside the pipe. It was obviously sewage from the system. I have had my house for 4 years and nothing like this has ever happened. After the rain stopped, I removed the cover on my septic tank and found that the tank was not full. The level was below the discharge pipe going to the field lines. I then removed the pipe plugs from the 3 pipes further out in the yard and each of them had water in them about 10 to 12 inches from the top. The sod also had water under it. When I stepped on it, it sunk down as if stepping on a waterbed. My family and I have been trying to limit our water usage for fear of a tank over load. Each day for the past 3 days I have went out and checked the 3 pipes and the septic tank level. The tank has been below the discharge pipe every time, but the pipes in the ground still have water in them. One of them has had the water level drop about 10 inches, but the other 2 are still about the same level. It seems strange to me to think that the field lines are holding water to the point of it coming out on the top of the ground, but none of it is flowing back to the tank. We are very concerned about having sewage/waste bubbling up into the back yard. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions on this issue. I would really like to hear an easy way to fix the situation, but I am sure there probably won't be one. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Herdsman]

What is the difference in elevation between your tank the field? If it's large enough, then high water in the field won't flow back to the tank, but will break out of the ground, i.e it's going to flow through the point of least resistance.

Sounds like your leach field is working, but marginally, so excess ground water (such as after a heavy rain) is preventing the water it the field from leaching out into the subsoil. This is they typical failure mode for most leach fields, grease and other solids eventually plug up the soil under/around the field reducing it's ability to drain water. Long ago we used to do acid treatments of the fields, I've been out of that business for many years now, I'm not sure if they still do that or have some other method of trying to address the plugging of the field.

[Wgoodrich]

The water at the end of the leach field tells me your septic lines are open. Two methods to approach to help the existing system is;

They have a wand that a contractor pushes into the earth all along the septic field then use a compressed gas shot into the earth causing the surrounding earth to heave a few inches and settle back down. This is done all throughout the septic field area and tends to break up the compaction and grease sealing action of contaminants that have leached into the stone bed and earth. This blowing the earth in the area disturbs those sealing contaminants allowing the earth to perk again.

If your system is in working condition and all you have is seasonal high water table problems due to lack of subsurface drainage you can install about 10' away from the septic field surrounding the septic field install a 4" perferrated plastic drain line and drain it to a nearby low area on top of the ground or to a field tile in the area or to a nearby creek. This allows the subsurface water level to be able to drain away from the septic field thus accepting the septic water leaching action again for the septic system.

Good Luck

Wg