Did you recently move away from a home that was tied to a municipal sewage system and into a home with a septic system? If so, congratulations! Although there is a bit of an adjustment period, we think you’ll find that Fairfax VA septic tanks offer some compelling advantages over the alternative. In this piece, we’ll give you a quick overview of what you can expect.
Advantages of Fairfax VA Septic Tanks Over Homes Tied To A Municipal Sewage System
In our view, there are four key advantages to consider:
Durability – Home septic systems are incredibly rugged, durable and long lasting. They were built to stand up to just about anything. With proper care and maintenance, your septic system will last decades and will not only serve you well, but the next family that buys your home when you’re ready to sell, and possibly the family after that!
Independence – Just as more and more people are turning to solar, wind and micro-hydro to generate their own power, an increasing number of people are taking control of processing their own waste. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, being beholden to others for the things you need to live.
In addition to that, Fairfax VA septic tanks are also self-contained systems that exist wholly on your property. If you’re tied to a municipal system, something that happens somewhere far from home or things you can control could knock your system offline and there’s nothing you can do about it. It starts working again when it starts working again.
Cost – If you live any distance at all from town, it can quickly become ruinously expensive to tie onto the city’s system. Very quickly, it just makes more financial sense to buy a septic system and have it installed. As years pass, even when the city limits push their way closer to your property, since you’ve already got a good alternative in place and it’s working, there’s just very little incentive to switch.
Finally, home septic systems foster better habits. If you’re tied to a municipal system, you often don’t think much about the stuff you flush down your toilet or pour down your sink drain. After all, while it might clog your drain, once you’ve dealt with that, whatever you poured or flushed is out of your life. It’s off to the sewage treatment plant where someone else will deal with it.
Septic tanks aren’t like that. Everything you pour down the drain or flush down the toilet winds up in the tank, which means that you’ll have to deal with it eventually, and that makes you more mindful.
Signs That Your Septic System May Be Having Trouble
So, now that we’ve gone over some of the advantages that Fairfax VA septic tanks offer, let’s talk about problems. As rugged as these systems are, they’re not invincible or invulnerable. Even the best-made systems struggle sometimes. When your system starts having trouble, it will tell you in a variety of ways.
Here’s a handy checklist of things to keep an eye out for:
- Pipes that shake and groan any time you flush one of your toilets or turn on a faucet. You won’t be able to miss it. Your house will suddenly sound like it’s haunted.
- You start noticing that the soil in and around your drain field is spongy or muddy, not just sometimes, but consistently.
- You notice foul odors wafting up from your sink drains or your toilets
- The sinks in your house drain really slowly, and the toilets won’t flush properly, no matter how many times you break your trusty plunger out and try to remedy the situation.
- The grasses that grow over your drain field are a notably different and brighter shade of green than the grasses growing in the rest of your yard
Left unchecked, all septic problems tend to end up the same way. They don’t get better on their own. They get progressively worse and most of the time, they result in raw sewage backing up inside your house. If you’ve never had to deal with that situation in your life, count yourself very lucky indeed. If you have, you know how awful it is. It’s almost certainly not something you ever want to have to deal with again.
That’s why it’s important to call a trusted expert at the first sign of trouble. We’re the #1 septic service company in the region, and nobody knows more about keeping home septic systems operating at peak efficiency than we do. Speaking of specific problems you’re likely to experience, here are some of the more common things we get called on to address:
Your Tank Is At Capacity
This is far and away the most common problem we see. We recommend that you have your tank pumped out every three to five years, and have your system inspected end to end any time you have the tank pumped out. That gives us the opportunity to make sure everything’s working as it should, and fix problems while they’re still in their formative stages.
Damaged Baffles
Your baffles are what keeps solids in the tank while allowing liquids to escape into the drain field. Baffles can get damaged by the simple passage of time, by driving heavy equipment or recreational vehicles over the drain field, or when roots grow into them from nearby trees.
Grease Capping
This is what happens when you pour grease down your drain. Some of it winds up in the drain field where it rises to the surface and hardens. To fix it, we’ll need to repair the drain field and pump out your tank. This is also why it pays to develop good septic tank ownership habits!
In any case, when trouble arises, help is just a phone call away!