During the past nine months, a subcommittee of the NAWT Education Committee has been working on a proposed Hydraulic Load Test Standard Procedure for point-of-sale real estate inspections. This is the first of several national issues the NAWT Education Committee would like to tackle – providing draft standards to promote discussion and hopefully consensus – that results in a nationally accepted procedure. The subcommittee consisted of Bruce Fox from Pennsylvania, Kit Rosefield from California and Robert Wright from Colorado. In addition, they collected input from other inspectors.

There are two major reasons to conduct a hydraulic load test as a part of a point-of-sale inspection. The first is to determine whether the sewage effluent moves through the system the way it was designed, and second, to determine if the final soil dispersal area will accept the effluent delivered to the area. This test should not be confused with hydraulic tests or soil evaluations associated with determining the design soil loading rate, which is used with the estimated average daily sewage flow rate to determine the size of the soil treatment area. Here the purpose is to inspect an already existing system to determine whether all necessary components are present and operating as they should.

There have been efforts to provide a standardized hydraulic load test for point-of-sale inspections. Probably the most notable is a protocol provided by the National Sanitation Foundation. In addition, some states such as Pennsylvania and Alaska have established protocols to make this determination. Other states have chosen to not provide guidance other than to say the system needs to be evaluated.

NAWT conducts a nationally recognized two-day inspection workshop addressing procedures for point-of-sale inspections. Coming into question is the recommendation that the volume of water introduced to conduct the load test should be 100 gallons or the equivalent of about two consecutive loads of laundry. The 100 gallons should be adequate to determine whether the system will back up into the septic tank, and a system should be expected to accept the equivalent of two loads of laundry to be considered operating properly. However, as indicated above, there are states with different requirements and others recommend the use of the NSF standard.

The subcommittee has drafted a proposed standard operating procedure to be used with the NAWT inspection program. The draft procedure has used the NSF standard, the Pennsylvania Septage Management Association standard, and a standard from Alaska as the basis for the procedure. The procedure is posted on the NAWT website.

The committee welcomes comment and suggested changes to the procedure. Review the procedure at NAWT.org and provide your comments. Based on comments and suggestions, the procedure will be revised and presented as a procedure for adoption.