Maintenance Key to Living With Septic Systems

by Jacqueline Chen

In the second of a three-part series scheduled for their weekly radio talk show, local Realtors Fran Vernon and Rowena Emmett discussed septic sytems with Cliff Jones of Gopher Construction. Whereas the first interview last week focused public sewers, this week’s concentrated on private waste disposal systems.

“You own it, you maintain it,” said Fran, “and that’s part of the problem I see when driving around our fair city because people aren’t maintaining them. People kind of forget they’re there, don’t realize they need maintenance.”

She said that there were sellers who thought their septic systems were functioning, but had rude shocks when they tried to sell.

Jones said that Los Angeles County has been upgrading septic tank performance standards in the past two years and the new criterion have very restrictive requirements on installing new systems and repairing old ones. Various cities were trying to find ways to adopt the new standards, including Malibu, which established its own ability to approve alternative sewer systems. It is embracing the new technology, and in the process really upgraded groundwater standards within the city.

Jones also said that traditional septic systems need to be pumped once every five to seven years. If this is not done, the system will get completely clogged up, but even with active maintenance, septic systems will still fail because the soil around it will get clogged up. Septic system failures cause pollution to our environment, especially the ground water, he said.

“When a system backs up and clogs up, you’re sitting around on the surface, what you’re smelling, that’s really bad,” said Jones. “When a system is working really good, like in a place where there is very, very sandy soil, then all the nitrates are going down into the soil and into the ground water and that’s one of the things (Assembly Bill) 885 is concerned about, and why these advanced technology systems are needed.”

As reported last week, AB 885 is concerned mainly with performance standards of existing septic systems.

According to Fran, all these new regulations have posed problems with sales of homes in La Cañada Flintridge.

“Years ago, people would buy houses not knowing that they’re on septic,” she said. “Now it’s a required disclosure but years and years ago, you never realized, never thought about the fact that you were not on a public sewer system.”

Jones said knowing the fact a home is on a septic system is an extremely important issue.

“At some point in time when you’re buying a home, you have to understand that if you’re going to want to add to it and LA County is going to require thousands of dollars of testing,” he said. “If you don’t have a system that works and you just want to fix your existing system, it’s still going to require a tremendous amount of testing. The installation costs can be very, very expensive.”

The price tag for a repair begins at $10,000 to $15,000, and can go up to $50,000 to $100,000, depending on the site.

In response to a call from “Scott,” a Sierra Madre property owner whose tenants poured grease into his septic system, Fran asked if readily available commercial enzymes could help.

“Some work and some don’t,” Jones said. “There are products available. Some of them are effective, some aren’t. Some of them are smoking mirrors. You can start with that.”

The bigger problem, said Jones, is when grease goes through the septic tank into the leach lines or seepage pits and clogs up the soil. Bacteria products help in such situations. Jones mentioned a device called the Piranha, quoting a price of $4,500 to $7,000 depending on the size of the house. He said that relative to the cost of a new septic system, priced anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 or more, the Piranha is an inexpensive solution.

When Fran asked for tips on preparations sellers can make in advance of putting a house on the market, groundwork that could alleviate a whole lot of headaches, Jones said that a complete septic system inspection should be done three to six months ahead of time. Any problems should be repaired so that the seller can get good certification to make the buyer more comfortable. An inspection generally costs between $800 and $1,500 depending on the amount of excavation that has to be done.

Another caller, “Phil,” who lives in Flintridge, said that recently many people have been working on their septic systems and he needed help to decide what kind of system to install. Cliff said that the first step is to get testing done by a qualified professional who will also design a system based on the percolation rate, which will determine whether a traditional or an advanced system should be used.

A percolation test is done by a geologist or environmentalist who digs a hole two feet in diameter, and thirty to fifty feet deep. The pit is then filled with water and to determine percolation rate design system. Typical cost for the test is $5,000 to $10,000 though Jones remembers a customer in La Cañada who had to dig 32 holes, at a cost of $90,000, before found one was found with sufficient percolation.

Fran and Rowena’s show is played on AM 870. It can also be heard on the Internet at their Web site www.franandrowena.com.