Missing septic tank

I have lived on this property for 27 years and have not been able to locate my septic tank.  The previous owner lived here for 10 years without finding it.
Yes, I spoke with the original owner.  I spoke with the contractor.  Both say there is a septic tank and leach field. Both agreed as to its general location.  I have traced the sewer pipe to about 30 feet after it leaves my house. I made visual contact and then followed it poking a concrete reinforcing rod through the soft soil in the early spring.  

The good news is that the original owner had a large family.  So I assume the size of the tank reflects that.  Now, only my wife and I live here.  To take more pressure off, we also have a commercially made composting toilet.  Still, I would like to know where the tank is.   Any ideas on how to locate it?

If you get snow where you live, look for the first spot that clears up when the snow starts melting. I struggled to find my tank until I noticed a circular bare spot in my backyard snow and placed a flag. I dug down and the lid was right there!

This is, of course, if you have the time to wait for snow again.

Hi Timothy,

I have taken the walk after a heavy frost as well as after snow. There is evidence that there was a great deal of earth moving with the original construction. I suspect the tank was buried deeper than normal.  I found the exit pipe while putting in a walk in entrance to my basement.  That pipe exited the house around 8 feet below the surface.  That depth became less as I moved away from the house. …but it remained at least a couple of feet deep.

It's a long shot, but you might check with the Town Sanitarian and see if they have an "As-built" survey on file.  Aside from that, if you know anyone with a magnetic locator, it might pick up on the rebar in the tank.  The tank should be within a couple of feet of the surface.  Codes vary, but if it's any deeper, they typically require risers to access the cover.  

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head to to poke around using a long, narrow metal rod--very narrow, something that easily pierces clay.  Not something that needs hammering--that would be bad.  Maybe you could poke around to find it?

Weird!




Eric

Unless you could get ground penetrating radar!  Or is there a sonar version?

When we found ours, it was deeper than normal and Hubby promptly had risers installed to make it easier to manage. Most people in the area seemed to mostly ignore theirs and assumed it would keep working with no pump-outs etc. Our Municipality has been gradually cracking down on that attitude, but has maybe gone overboard in the other direction - we have a *lot* of 1-2 occupancy homes that don't need to be pumped out every 5 years. However, we also have more and more legal and illegal suites, so the 5 year rule covers that better.

Story time: Our property is the large section (over 4 acres) that originally had the just less than 2 acre property beside us as part of. This smaller portion has the original small "cottage" with additions. One owner family outgrew the cottage and decided to build a house. Some how they forgot, or never knew that the septic field for the cottage was on what became the subdivided off property. Both properties had several owners. One sold to a fellow who needed to park heavy vehicles up past the house, so he built a sturdy farm road. While working on the road he discovered a pipe.... no one knew what the pipe was for, so he just cut it out and carried on building his road.

Eventually the septic tank for the cottage filled up to the brim and overflowed. The cottage now has it's own septic field on its side of the lot line, and that current cottage owner, dutifully has the tank pumped as needed.

Moral of the story: Document, document, document - do not rely of human memories, or human uncommon sense.

Good luck finding your tank, John.

Hi Pete,  

Great idea, but there are no building codes.

Hi Jay,

Fortunately, the state did a survey a few years ago via EPA.  My property is not on the short list. But the realities of life show that eventually they will take an interest. Of course, the contractor and the original owner are now dead.  Therefore, it seems to be a really good idea to hunt this thing down now … before I am given a date to provide evidence.

I keep thinking someone's going to find our septic tank in a bad way. Probably the dogs.... (Must get that lid seen to!)

Ask your local cemetery grave digger, they will probably have access to a ground penetrating radar device used to locate unmarked graves.

Around here there are septic tank inspectors who can feed a camera through the pipes and use that to determine where the tank is outside using a transmitter. For a fee of course :)

Good advices here....I hope you can get this resolved, John.   Our water table is so high here that rural septic tanks and attached drain fields are really easy to find.  We were grandfathered in for keeping that last installed septic system for our house, but if it were to be replaced, county now requires a larger mound system with lift pump....just one more point for it to fail.  Since it's just the two of us, we are very easy on that current system.  We were glad to find out from the last guy who pumped it....an old timer who's been in the septic biz for many decades.....that up into the 1970s this house did not have a septic system.  They just had the pipe running right down to the river!......   :-X

Hello,

I would keep an eye for suspicious plant activity too.
On my front garden, I have a marvelous nettle patch, in the middle of a very dry area.
When we last emptied our septic tank, we found the exit pipe was not directed towards our sewer as it should per code, but going in the opposite direction, right to the nettles patch.
And the next sewer access in that direction is buried under the neighbour's fence.

Now do I really have to dig a trench all the way from the tank to the neighbour's land to find the leaking pipe and reroute it to the sewer instead of using the nettles ...

Have a nice evening,
Oliver

If you've got a rodding point you could stick drain rods down until they hit the other side of the tank? That would give you a distance. Is there any reason that the drain would have have a bend in it? If not that ought to give you a pretty good idea where it might be.

Septic companies have radio locator “pills” that they flush then track.

It will cost you extra, but if you call and let them know what’s up, the septic company usually doesn’t charge a lot extra above the general pumping fee.