Pumper Promotes Venting Septic Tank Lids

To the Editor:

We install risers on 95 percent of the tanks that we dig out, especially on concrete tanks. The following isn’t an issue for plastic or fiberglass tanks.

We explain to our customers the deterioration process that happens to the concrete, in the air space above the water level, when the corrosive gases are trapped in the tank. We suggest wedging the tank lids open about 1/2 inch and drilling a few holes in the top of the riser lids. This allows the expansive gases moving up through the house’s sewer gas vents to pull air through the tank and out the vents, much like a fireplace chimney pulling air out of the house, thus eliminating nearly all of the deterioration that occurs in a buried tank.

There are some that protest the aesthetics of exposed lids, especially if they are in the front yard. Tell them to put a birdbath and/or garden statue on the lids, this makes the lids look like bases for the statues.

Mention the cost of replacing a leachfield if the discharge baffle corrodes to water level and solids enter the leachfield or if the whole secondary compartment on the tank collapses.

Max Tallent

Arrowhead Septic

Colorado Springs, Colo.



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