How long has it been since you had your septic system inspected or your tank pumped out? If you aren’t sure, then chances are that it’s well past time. We recommend having both services performed at 3-5 year intervals. That will keep the amount of non-biodegradable materials in your tank to a minimum and give our experts regular opportunities to spot problems with your system while they’re still small.
All things being equal, small problems are much cheaper and easier to fix than big ones, and most big problems with your septic system only end one way: With a backflow of raw sewage inside your home. If you’ve never had to deal with that kind of issue, count yourself lucky. If you have, you know what a nightmare it can be.
We can help make sure you never have to worry about that. As the #1 septic service company in the area, and with more than three decades of experience under our belts, there’s not much our talented crew hasn’t seen at this point. Even if it’s been a while since your tank had any TLC, we’ve got you covered.
We get asked a lot of questions while we’re pumping and inspecting tanks for our clients, with one of the most common questions being ‘how much bleach is too much for a Catlett VA septic system?’
It’s easy to see why there’s a concern and where the question comes from. After all, many household cleaning products have bleach in them, and bleach doesn’t play nicely with bacteria. Since your septic system needs a thriving colony of bacteria to do its work, it’s a fair question.
Fortunately, the answer to the question ‘how much bleach is too much for a Catlett VA septic system?’ is a lot more than you might think.
Don’t worry, those bleach-based cleaners won’t cause any problems for your home septic system. In fact, you’d have to pour as much as two gallons of bleach straight down the drain for it to have a serious impact.
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with asking the question ‘how much bleach is too much for a Catlett VA septic system?,’ the danger is that by focusing on bleach and the potential damage it could cause, it takes your attention away from other hazards which are even more detrimental to your system.
Here are a few of the threats we’re talking about:
Excess Water In Your System
This one might leave you puzzled. After all, your septic tank is hooked into your home’s plumbing system, and it’s got water flowing into it all the time, so how could adding a bit more water be damaging?
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, specifically where your drain field is concerned. The drain field processes wastes by a process called percolation. When there’s too much water in the field though, the soil becomes supersaturated and it can’t percolate. No percolation = no waste processing, and you’re an unhappy home owner.
The two biggest causes where excess water are concerned are the downspouts connected to your gutters and dripping faucets/constantly running toilets.
Thankfully, both are easy to fix.
Where the downspouts are concerned, just make sure they’re angled well away from your drain field and they won’t give you any trouble.
Where the faucets and toilets are concerned, the moment you see a drip, or hear a toilet running, diagnose the issue and fix it if you can. If it’s beyond your level of expertise, call your local plumber and nip it in the bud to minimize its impact on your septic system and drain field.
Chemical Drain Cleaners
While the answer to the question ‘how much bleach is too much for a Catlett VA septic system?’ is measured in gallons, it takes much smaller amounts of chemical drain cleaner to do serious harm to your system. In some cases, no more than a teaspoon is required to devastate the bacteria in your tank. Avoid chemical drain cleaners at all costs!
Grease
Most people know that pouring grease down the drain is a bad idea, but you’d be surprised at how often it happens. It’s bad news for your system in two ways:
First, some portion of the grease will get trapped in your tank and remain there until you pump it out, interfering with the tank’s normal operation.
Second, some portion will escape, leeching into your drain field where it will float to the surface and harden, in a phenomenon known as grease capping. When this happens, your drain field isn’t able to process wastes effectively.
You’ve almost certainly seen at least a few late-night infomercials selling products that promise to safely dissolve the grease in your tank so it can flow out of the system. Don’t believe it. Not only do these products not work as advertised, but many of them will devastate your tank bacteria, making a bad problem even worse.
Again, it’s certainly not the case that asking the question ‘how much bleach is too much for a Catlett VA septic system?’ is a bad thing – just be mindful that while bleach isn’t a big problem unless you dump a lot of it down the drain, the issues we described above can have a much greater impact, so don’t lose sight of those!
In any case, if you even think you might be having a problem with your home septic system. Help is just a phone call away. Give us a call today. We’ll be there when you need us.