Loudoun County Va Septic Tank Drainfields

Loudoun County VA septic tank drainfields are the unsung heroes of the septic systems they’re a part of. For most people, the septic tank itself gets the bulk of the attention.

That is perhaps understandable, but the reality is that problems with your drainfield can be every bit as detrimental to your system’s operation as tank problems can be. In this piece, we’ll introduce you to a few of the things that can go wrong with Loudoun County VA septic tank drainfields, and what you can do about them.

Soil Compaction

Over time, the soil in your yard will naturally tend to compact. It’s not usually a big deal in most of your yard, but where your drainfield is concerned, it matters because generally speaking, the looser the soil is, the more water can percolate through it and the more oxygen the system has to work with. Both of those are very good things.

In addition to compacting on its own, courtesy of the simple passage of time, any time you move heavy equipment or large vehicles over the drainfield, that can, of course, speed the process along. It can also damage the pipes that connect your septic tank to your drainfield. If that happens, liquids can’t even get to the field, which means they’ll back up in your tank until they start backflowing into your house!

All of these problems are solved by minimizing the vehicle traffic over Loudoun County VA septic tank drainfields, periodically aerating the soil and having inspections done at regular intervals. Typically, we recommend every three to five years.

Excess Water In The System

Water plays an integral role in your home’s septic system, but too much water can work against it and ultimately cause your system to shut down.

Think about it: Soil, regardless of its quality, can only handle so much water at a time. Introduce too much, too quickly, and once the soil is supersaturated, anything over and above that has nowhere to go. It’s just going to pool in your yard until the soil has time to work through it.

Now think about that in the context of Loudoun County VA septic tank drainfields. Normally, your drainfield only has to deal with nominal amounts of water mixed with waste from your septic tank. When everything’s working properly, the field can easily percolate this away.

But what happens if you have a toilet that’s constantly running or a faucet that drips all the time? They might not seem like big deal, but those kinds of things can add a tremendous amount of water to your tank which ultimately leaves the tank for your drainfield, and it’s possible that it can overwhelm the system, especially when coupled with a couple of hard days’ rain.

Now add the downspouts connected to your gutters to the equation. If they are pointed in the general direction of the drainfield, then every time it rains, all the runoff from your roof is flowing straight into the drainfield. That’s almost certainly going to overload the system which will leave you in the position of having foul smelling liquids sitting in sludgy pools in your drainfield until the system can handle the big influx of water.

Not only is that a breeding ground for a variety of pests, but it can also pose a genuine health risk for you and your family. Not good. Again though, these types of issues are easy to address as long as you stay on top of the plumbing inside your home and are mindful of you’re the downspouts connected to your gutters and their position, relative to your drainfield.

Grease Capping

You know how people are always warning of the dangers of pouring grease down your sink drain if you have a home septic system? Grease capping is the reason why. It’s the end-result of that very action.

It’s not usually a huge deal if you’re connected to a city sewer system. Outside of the fact that it might clog up the drain temporarily, once you deal with that issue, the grease goes on into the processing plant where it becomes someone else’s headache. With a septic system though, you’ll have to deal with any and everything you flush down the toilet or pour down the drain, even if you don’t want to.

If you have a momentary lapse and pour grease down the sink, here’s what happens: Some of it remains in the tank where it will work hard to clog up the system, resulting in you having to have your tank pumped out at more regular intervals than you would under other circumstances.

Some of the grease though, will exit the tank and find its way into your drainfield. Once there, it will work its way to the surface and harden, forming a grease cap. At that point, any liquids that come into the field from the tank won’t be able to be processed or percolated away, because that takes oxygen, which is now being denied by the cap.

The fix for this one is pretty simple. It involves having the tank pumped, the field repaired and an increased level of mindfulness to keep it from happening again.

If you’re having septic system problems of any kind, whether they stem from a problem in the tank or the drainfield, give our office a call. We’ll be happy to assist.