Submitted by Garth Millan, PL, IN, MP 

 

The summer of 2015 will go down in the record books for the most septic emergency calls on a weekly basis. During the seven week period from July 15th to September 7th, 2015, I received 16 emergency callouts and another 8 lesser emergencies.

To me an emergency is when “sewage is showing and toilets are slowing”.

Of the 16 emergency calls, 11 were weekend callouts. Four repairs had to happen over a 2-3 day period. Most of the repairs involved homes with extended family visiting. Two of the 4 major repairs were the result of alarms ignored by homeowners on a previous occasion.

ALL OF THE FOUR REPAIRS WOULD HAVE BEEN LESS URGENT WITH REGULAR MAINTENANCE!

If the phone rings on a Saturday or a Sunday, and I hear voices claiming they see and smell sewage and have family visiting, I try to respond immediately. There are many reasons for responding promptly. First of all, I hate working if I require hip waders or a kayak to find the tanks and SCUBA gear is not appropriate for locating pumps. If there are small children visiting or living in the home, a bathroom is a necessity.

What are grandma and grandpa to do, when the house, the toilet, the trash tanks, and the bathtubs are full – and all are unpleasant? And – because we are a small island during a very busy summer, there is no hotel to take refuge in. They usually beg the ROWP to respond. They are now ready to listen to every word the ROWP has to say. They will do anything to survive this emergency. In other words, “THE SEPTIC SYSTEM IS NO LONGER OUT OF SIGHT- OUT OF MIND.” Fifteen years of lack of maintenance because “they never had a problem, so why service it” has now become a serious problem.

Let me share one incident and how I resolved the situation:

I missed the Saturday night call to an overflowing tank. On Sunday morning, after my leisurely breakfast, I decided to check my phone messages. There were three frantic pleas for help. While debating whether I should ignore the message, the phone again rings, and the tone of voice is reduced to great despair. I tentatively answer, and the gratitude of the client is quite evident. I explain that the tank will probably require a pump down, so that I can locate the pump and/or floats. It is Sunday and pumper operators are sane enough to not answer the telephone. I listen to the panic and despair.

Soon I am loading the 250 gallon portable tank onto my pickup and grabbing my spare effluent pump and about 100 feet of firehose and a huge supply of PVC pipe and fittings and off I go to do my own little pump out.

I arrive and after multiple hugs and offers of cookies and cake, I set up. I pump down a few hundred liters of raw sewage into my portable setup until I can see the pump and accessories. I do not have the replacement pump in stock. It is Sunday. I pump down as much as my little tank will hold. I secure the area. I give the homeowner explicit instructions to only flush when absolutely necessary and do NOT do laundry or shower or anything extravagant.

I then go to the basement to check out the alarm. The smell is obvious. Behind the finished wall is a 3 foot cavity which houses the mechanical room with a concrete block exterior wall, which has a huge wet, brown stain travelling down from the exit of the sewer outflow pipe. It travels to a puddle of brown water on the floor. More instructions to the homeowner that this is off limits to dogs, cats, rats, kids, really anything that moves, and to lock the access door.

I return home and complete an online order for the pump and arrange for a rush delivery on Monday. The pump arrives at 1:30 PM on Monday. I shoot over to the jobsite and begin to make the replacement. This is when you find the electrical wiring is compromised, and floats are compromised and you have to find an electrician. Good luck. What to do? I bite the bullet and decide this family is traumatized quite enough, and make the wiring connections myself; jotting a note to have an electrician complete a follow up on my work.

Now, I have to run some tests. I have to slowly empty my portable tank of its contents, while running voltage and amperage tests on the new pump and checking the exit ends of the pipes to ensure nothing is plugged. I manage to empty the tank.

It is now 7:00 PM. I am too tired to load wash and load equipment. More instructions to the homeowner and I say I will return tomorrow to pick up my portable tanks and hose and bring a very large invoice.

The next day I return and spend about an hour washing and flushing my equipment, and loading same on to my pickup truck. The owner comes out and tells me the downstairs toilet is still not flushing, despite plunging, and sweat and swearing. It then dawns on me –DDDUUUUHHHH!!!! The sewage tank I have repaired is for the main floor of the house. There has to be another combination tank below the downstairs bathroom.

I grab my trusty shovel and probes and go hunting for another tank. After an hour of fruitless searching, I ask the homeowner to telephone the home builder and see if they remember where it might be. The benefit of small island life is being on a first name basis with most of the builders. We are in luck. He remembers it is on the outside of the west wall of the bathroom. DRATTS and DOUBLE DRATTTS. The outer west wall of the house is now an inner wall of the finished basement, with the sewage transfer tank and pump under a nicely tiled floor, under a handcrafted solid oak desk and countertop mounted to the wall. There is almost 28 inches of clearance. I pry the nicely crafted and ceramic tiled floor access from the floor and see raw sewage oozing from the sealed lid of the little 40 gallon pump tank. The floor access is 18” X 18” and the lid of the tank is 19” in diameter.

Through a haze of tears and rage smoked eyeballs, I grit my teeth and tell the homeowner to padlock the downstairs bathroom. I will return to repair this when they have all left the island and gone back to wherever home is. I refuse to attempt to remove this pump. As I stare down at the insanity of this stupid design, I see that there is a receptacle on the wall with a piggyback plug strongly resembling a float plug. I carefully remove the float piggy back plug and plug the pump directly into the receptacle. I laugh hysterically, as I hear the sound of the pump operating normally. I see bubbling at the seams of the tank. I hear liquid flowing through pipes. I hear the unmistakeable sound of a pump sucking air, which tells me the chamber is empty. I am overjoyed. I set up a power bar for the homeowner to be able to start and stop the pump with the flick of a switch. I caution him to use the bathroom at his own risk. I close the deal by handing him a large invoice and explicit instructions that I will not return until the house is vacant, and that his pretty tile floor will get un-pretty. AND just maybe the chainsaw will shorten the lovely oak desk top enough to safely remove the pump and floats from the little tank. I can tell by the look in his eye that he thinks I am joking.

In Real Estate they say “Location!! Location!! Location!!
In our industry it must be “Maintenance!! Maintenance!! Maintenance!!”

Garth Millan is a septic system installer, designer and maintenance provider who lives on Hornby Island and works in the surrounding area. He is a huge advocate of septic system maintenance. Garth has served on the WCOWMA-BC board since 2013 and was elected WCOWMA-BC President in February 2015.