“Safer At Home” Policies Can Stress Septic Systems

Everyone is spending a lot more time at home, and this can increase the load on your septic system. More food is prepared at home. We are washing more dishes and running the dishwasher and garbage disposal more than usual.

More Laundry

Many families are also doing laundry more often. All this extra water usage down your drains increases the stress on septic systems.

Disinfecting Wipes & Cleaning Products

To prevent COVID-19 from spreading, many families are using higher amounts of disinfectants like bleach and are flushing disinfecting wipes down the toilet. These chemicals are harmful to the microbiology in your septic tank. If you kill off the good bacteria in your septic system, it won’t be able to break down the larger particles which results in poor transfer into your drain field.  Ultimately, it can clog your leach field. Septic owners should remember that every septic system has a limited capacity. If your system is stressed or overloaded beyond its capacity, you could end up with a messy, costly failure.

Septic Care Checklist

Here are some recommendations for how you can reduce the stress on your septic system.

• Never flush personal wipes or disinfecting wipes down the toilet. Dispose of wipes in the regular garbage instead.
• Minimize the amount of bleach Try to keep it to less than 1 Cup per day.
• Use liquid laundry detergent instead of powder. Powder detergents don’t dissolve as well, and clog up the leach field lines.
• Use regular, good old-fashioned soap for hand washing.
• When doing laundry, wait until you have a larger load rather than doing many small washes.
• Take showers instead of taking a bath which uses more water. Limits showers to 5 minutes or less.
• If you have chemical products in your toilet tank, stop using them.
• If your kitchen has a garbage disposal, try not to use it. It increases the organic waste going to your septic system considerably. Instead, put food waste in your outdoor compost or regular garbage.
• Fix leaky plumbing immediately, especially toilet flappers that can allow extra water to enter your septic system.
• If you have not had your septic tank pumped in several years, call a septic service company (they are considered an essential service) and get it done!
• When your septic service professional is on site, ask them to check for signs of overloading or stress on the system including things like:
  • Higher-than-normal levels in the septic tank
  • back-flow into the tank from the leach field
  • signs of past high levels such as debris on top of the inlet or outlet baffles or “Tees” or high water marks or rings on the wall of the tank
  • Unusual smells or lack of a healthy looking crust floating on top
  • Evidence of surface water or groundwater infiltrating into the tank.

While there are no guarantees that following the above suggestions will prevent you from having a septic disaster, they can help reduce your risk. https://septicsitter.com/covid-19-crisis-and-septic-system-impacts/