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Before and almost After photos of my home's drain field area.

First photo taken in May. Notice how nice and full the clover is?

In June, an early heat wave and mini-drought killed off most of it. Second photo taken today after work.

On to the post -

Living in the country means I don't have connection to a Municipal Sewer System. (I do have water via the city / county water system).

The typical rural single house system is a septic tank with drain field.

When I built my house, North Carolina was reacting to a number of large multi-home on-site system failures. These systems were promoted by a "certain" company that was building and installing ground systems serving whole neighbourhoods and communities.

Well - I'm a Civil Engineer and I knew that large scale application of these systems were bull*&%t. Or rather, human*&%t.

Back then I was in private practice. I encountered that "certain" company on a few occasions.

One project was a subdivision where I had to come in and design a municipal system in place of an idiotic (and very expensive - $354,000 as I recall) Rube Goldberg* system the other company / consultant had designed and was trying to foist off on the developer.

My design came in around $225,000. Gravity lines and manholes, duel lift station and force main.

It wasn't that big of a deal subdivision / project at the time. So I'm not exact about my system cost - but 225k is in the ballpark. I do remember that my design also handled over three as many homes as the "idiotic" system.

And - we're talking mid 1990's dollars.

The development / subdivision was (is) in Wake Forest - off US 1 - North of Raleigh.

But - I digress.

A lot of those Rube Goldberg* systems failed and there were some pretty serious repercussions - in terms of both environment and cost.

Heavy regulation followed which trickled down (pun intended) to individual homeowner systems. Which hadn't been a problem. Classic case of overreaction and subsequent over regulation.

Anyway - my house construction got caught in the middle of it.

Instead of a simple septic tank and drain field - my house (under the then "new" rules and guidelines) required a huge drain field, imported dirt (for improved percolation) and the soil scientist identified the ideal drain field location uphill from my house.

Which required a two tank system with pump, equalizing pressure manifold and timed dosing system. It's what's known in the industry as a Low Pressure Pipe (LPP) system.

I built my house 12 years ago. At that time - a simple tank and drain field cost around $2,000 or so. My LPP system cost a whopping $8,000.

LPP systems are classified as 'commercial / public' by definition which means my system has to be "operated" by a licensed operator. In my case, that means the operator comes by twice a year - checks everything out - and sends reports to the County Health Department.

Over time, however, I neglected my drain field. I didn't keep it cut and cleared. Eventually the vegetation took over to the point where I had small trees growing in it. That is BAD. In all capital letters.

The past two weeks - I've been having the field restored. Since there are small PVC pipes just below the ground - you can't go in there and knock things down with a bulldozer. Everything has to be done by 'hand'. Care has to be taken to not damage the pipe system. Machinery has to be specialized and lightweight just for this application.

Fortunately, I've found the perfect company to fix my field - a landscaping company out of Siler City called Maple Hill Farms (no web site).

Those guys have been working carefully for 2 weeks. They are also taking out about a dozen dead and dying trees since they're already here.

The coolest thing was watching them smooth, till, and grind down small tree stumps and roots with a machine that I can only compare to a Zamboni. Except it's for dirt.

Basically the trees and undergrowth have been all cut down by hand. Fine chipped and spread back out. The rest of the weeds, brush, etc. mowed down and spread around. Then the Zamboni thingy mulches / tills / grinds / and smooths the soil.

I'm told my drain field (1/2 acre active field + 1/2 acre reserve field) will end up being a really nice lawn.

Cost so far? $5,850 and counting.

BTW - Eventually sanity returned to the sizing, design, permitting and installation of individual home septic systems.

If my house were built today - it would likely be a regular single tank with a gravity drain field about 2,000 square foot in size.

If the soil really did require an LPP system - the active drain field size would increase to about 3,000 or 4,000 square feet. NOT the 1/2 acre my system has.

Yep - the drain field for my system is about 6 times the size it needs to be. Click on the photo - there's a guy standing in the filed. That will give you an idea of the size.

Sometimes I can be full of s*#@. LOL. But it would take me and a small army to crap enough to need a field that size.

*Note - Speaking of Rube Goldberg and apropos of nothing - here's a happy video: