Is Bleach Harmful To Fairfax Va Septic Systems?

Is bleach harmful to Fairfax VA septic systems? It’s a question we get quite frequently from the customers we serve, and it’s not hard to understand why. After all, many household cleaning products contain bleach, and one way or another, some of that bleach finds its way into their septic tank.

Bleach is deadly to bacteria, your septic needs bacteria to do its work, so it seems like a match doomed to failure.

The good news though is the answer to the question ‘is bleach harmful to Fairfax VA septic systems?’ is…not really, or at least not in the kinds of quantities that will wind up in your tank on account of using cleaning products. Sure, sure, if you went out and purchased 1-2 gallons of bleach and poured it straight down the drain, you’d do serious harm to the bacteria in your tank, so don’t do that, okay?

Seriously though, it would take about that much bleach to do real harm. The amount of bleach you’ll introduce into your system via cleaning products is trivial and won’t cause you any problems.

The question ‘is bleach harmful to Fairfax VA septic systems?’ isn’t a bad one at all, but it does carry a slight risk. Given the answer to that question, the danger is that if you spend too much time being concerned about something that’s not much of a problem, you may be distracted away from other issues that are actually much more serious.

What kinds of issues are we talking about? Here are a few examples:

1) Grease: Almost everyone knows that pouring grease down the drain is a bad idea, but it still happens with disturbing regularity. There are two major problems where grease is concerned. First, some of the grease will stay in the tank where it will slowly clog your system until you have it pumped out.

Second, some of the grease will escape, which is even worse. Once it’s out, it will float to the surface of your drain field and harden, a phenomenon we refer to as grease capping. The reason that’s a problem is that the soil in your drain field needs oxygen in order to process waste. With a hard shell of dried grease sitting atop of it, it can’t get the oxygen it needs, which means that the drain field stops processing waste. That’s a big problem.

You may have seen or heard about various products that the advertisers claim can dissolve grease in your tank, enabling it to get flushed from the system without causing you any trouble and without needing to have the tank pumped out. It’s marketing hype, so don’t believe it.

Not only do these products not work, but many of them contain harsh chemicals that will wreck the bacteria in your tank. All these products do then, is make a bad situation worse.

2) Chemical drain cleaners: As we said at the start, the answer to the question ‘is bleach harmful to Fairfax VA septic systems?’ is generally no, unless you pour a couple gallons of it down the drain. Chemical drain cleaners, on the other hand, are a different story. All it takes is about a teaspoon to devastate your tank bacteria. Avoid these like the plague. If you don’t, you’re all but guaranteed to have a big septic tank repair bill.

3) Water: This one might cause some people to scratch their heads in puzzlement. After all, your septic tank is tied to your home’s plumbing system, so how can water be a bad thing?

While it’s true that your home septic system relies on water to function, too much water can be a bad thing. The reason? Too much water introduced too quickly overloads your drain field, causing the soil to become supersaturated. When that happens, it can’t process waste effectively until it’s had a chance to dry out.

There are lots of different ways that excess water can wind up in your system, but the two most common are these:

a. The downspouts connected to your rain gutters. This is a super easy problem to fix. Just be sure that the downspouts are angled away from your drain field, and this won’t be an issue for you.

b. Constantly running toilets and/or dripping faucets – Even a slow drip can introduce a surprising amount of water to your system. The moment you spot problems like this, it’s time to break out your tools and fix them, or, if that’s beyond your skill level, give your local plumber a call.

Again, it’s not that the question ‘is bleach harmful to Fairfax VA septic systems?’ is a bad one; it’s simply that since bleach in the quantities you’re likely to be introducing to your tank isn’t’ really an issue, spending too much time worrying about it could cause you to lose sight of other, potentially more dangerous problems.

All this, of course, brings us around to the topic of maintenance. You probably noticed above that we mentioned having your tank pumped in a couple of different places. Our recommendation is that you have that done and your septic system inspected every three to five years to keep it working at something close to peak efficiency.

That saves you money and gives you tremendous peace of mind. Two very good things. Give us a call to schedule your appointment today!