Septic Tank

So it was on a Sunday morning... I had, of course, rehearsed the possible outcomes during the wee hours. It was either the pump failure or the float switches. It turned out to be the latter and it was possible to fix without spending much apart from hours of my time.

The septic tank has two main chambers and a third, pump-sump chamber. The effluent has to be pumped about 350m along and perhaps 5m uphill to the reed bed. For a domestic septic system to rely on a pump is undesirable but the lie of the land gave us no choice.

Oh, and the invert level (that's the normal level of the sewage) is perhaps 1.5m below ground level again determined by the lie of the land.

I removed the cover to the sump chamber - you have to climb down a ladder maybe 2m to get to the top of this chamber - and quickly found the problem - the cable clips that hold the amber warning light float switch cable and thus determine its height had corroded right through, so the amber light was 'on' even though the pump was still operating. But the pump's float switch was also malfunctioning - being permanently on, and the junction box lid had fallen off again because the four screws had corroded away. So I fixed the warning float switch with stainless steel screw and copper tie wire, replaced the pump float switch, and replaced the junction box. It is far from ideal having even a sealed junction box in this chamber as the humidity is 100% by definition but it would take a lot of work to relocate it.

"Church" came somewhat annoyingly halfway through, which meant an interim shower and change of clothes. Eventually I got done and cleared up and then went for a constitutional barefoot run (I did not do the septic tank barefoot!). My reward - a deep, hot bath, only possible because the septic tank is working again!