How Do I Know If My Aldie Va Septic Tank Needs Pumped Out?

How do I know if my Aldie VA septic tank needs pumped out? It’s an excellent question and one we get on a regular basis from the customers we serve who are interested in being proactive and avoiding the worst septic troubles.

It’s not hard to understand where the question comes from, either. After all, even people who are new to life with a home septic system intuitively understand that when the tank fills up, there’s only one place the raw sewage has to go – straight back into your house, and that’s just something that nobody wants to ever have to deal with.

If you’ve been wondering the same thing, this article will be right up your alley. Just below, we’ll answer that very question in a couple of different ways and give you some valuable insights you can use to ensure your home septic system provides you with years of reliable service. If that sounds good to you, let’s get right to it!

How Do I Know If My Aldie VA Septic Tank Needs Pumped Out?

The stock answer to that question, and our general recommendation is this: You should have your tank pumped out every three to five years. While we’re doing that, we also recommend having your system inspected from end to end.

This gives us the opportunity to spot problems while they’re still in their formative stages when, all things being equal, they’re relatively easier and less expensive to repair.

Of course, that advice is only of value and use if you know when the last time your tank was pumped out. If you’re struggling to remember the date, the safest course of action is to assume that it’s time, or perhaps even past time and have it done right away. Then, with a date firmly fixed, you can set a digital reminder to have it done at regular intervals from that point forward.

It’s important to remember though, that every family is different. As such, the particulars of your household might dictate that you need to have the tank pumped out more or less frequently. That depends on a number of different factors, but the biggest ones are:

• How many people you have living in your house/how big your family is.
• How many people stay overnight at your house on a regular basis.
• And how good your septic tank habits are.

If you’re more accustomed to living in a home that’s tied to a municipal sewage system and this is your first time living with a septic tank, that last item might take you by surprise, but it’s true! There are indeed good and bad septic tank habits.

While there are a number of differences between living in a house tied to the city sewage system and a home with a septic system, there’s one in particular we want to focus your attention on.

If you’re tied to the city’s sewage system, then it doesn’t matter too much what you flush down the toilet or pour down your sink drains. Sure, it may clog your pipes up temporarily ,but as soon as you clear the clog, the offending material, whatever it was, is off to the sewage treatment plant where it will become someone else’s problem.

Things don’t work like that if you have a septic tank. Sooner or later, every scrap of material that gets flushed down the toilet or poured down the sink drain is going to have to be dealt with. It’s inevitable because all of that winds up in the tank.

The more inappropriate stuff that winds up in your tank, the more often you’re going to have to have it pumped out. It’s just that simple.

The most important aspect of developing better septic tank habits is to become much more mindful of exactly what kinds of things are going into your tank. The two biggest things to avoid are cooking grease poured down the sink drain and anything that isn’t biodegradable. If you can avoid adding those things to your tank, you’ll be miles ahead in minimizing the frequency of your tank pump outs and in minimizing system problems.

Of course, all of the above only takes you so far. There’s one more important thing to talk about in answering the question ‘How do I know if my Aldie VA septic tank needs pumped out?’

In the age of the internet and handheld computers, we’ve gotten used to getting alerts on our phones when there’s a problem we need to be aware of. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing yet as a ‘Smart’—internet connected—septic system. Even so, your system will try to alert you when it starts to have problems, but you have to know what to look for. Here are a few:

• Your toilets won’t flush properly.
• Your sinks start draining painfully slowly.
• You notice bad odors wafting up from your sink drains, toilets and in the area around your drain field.
• The ground in and around the drain field is persistently muddy, squishy or soggy.
• Your pipes start to rattle and groan any time you turn on a faucet or flush a toilet.

If you see any of those, call us right away. Those symptoms don’t automatically mean your tank is full, but they’re all signs that your system is struggling and if the underlying problem isn’t addressed, you could see that nightmare scenario of raw sewage backing into your home.

Don’t let it come to that. Give us a call at the first sign of trouble!