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Home » Case Studies

Case Studies

This is a new home on the shore of a small recreational lake in the Fraser Valley. Issues with this site include extremely high water table, a drainage ditch running along the back of the property, a very small available footprint for the septic field due to Ministry of Environment setback requirements for the new home, and of course the lakefront 100 feet from the septic field. The solution here was a custom made aerobic treatment system with a small sand mound for disposal. The aerobic system with the sand mound provides a double layer of treatment and ensures that septic effluent, by the time it reaches the surrounding water, is of drinking water quality.

 

When this lakefront home sold, the prospective owners had a Registered Private Inspector perform a full inspection. He found that the fifty year old house had a small septic tank, with the outlet directed into the homes’ rainwater gutter system, and from there to the pristine lake.  The new owner contracted with SepticExpert to design and install a new system which would eliminate the old lake discharge system and provide a long term solution for this valuable property.  SepticExpert installed a state of the art peat biofilter, with a raised sand bed for disposal. This was a difficult installation, with groundwater issues, and a very small working area, and we installed sod in the customer’s back yard at no charge to make it presentable once we were done.

 

This home was owned by a family who wanted more space. The renovation doubled the size of the home, and added several bedrooms, which meant that the existing septic system was too small. In addition, it was found that the original system was showing the effects of 20 years of hard use and it was felt that the best solution was to start over. We reused the existing septic tank after updating it as we always do with new risers and lids, and added a new second tank in series to provide suitable retention time for the increased size of the home. The owners wished to limit the size of the drain field, so we designed a type two system. We used an Eljen geosynthetic media filter.  This is a passive system that allows a large reduction in the surface area of the system. It requires no additional pumps and tanks, as the secondary treatment takes place in the ground before the septic effluent is absorbed into the soil.

This project was for a 50 year old farmhouse with the original septic system.  The family asked us to determine the cause of slow draining plumbing. The septic tank had not been seen for years, and the owners had only a vague idea of its location. We located a very large poured on site concrete tank, and used our camera and locating equipment to find the other components in the system. The outlet of the septic tank ran into a small cedar box with no bottom, and from there to a very short clay tile drain field. It seems rudimentary by today’s standards, but it served the family well for over 50 years before finally failing.  We upgraded the well made existing concrete tank with new access holes and risers, and mortared up the original slap lid. A filter was installed in the new outlet baffle. This tank will easily last another 50 years, and did not need replacement. The wooden box and clay tile field were decommissioned, and a new infiltrator chamber system installed in the back yard.