A friend of mine is putting in a septic at his house in the spring (I'm putting the system in). He had perk tests done by the engineer in the late fall. The engineer came back and said the town (we live in nj) is requiring more perk tests in January to see what the ground does when it's frozen?!? Is this normal? Seems like a moote point to me since we're putting select fill in the bed not existing soil. He called me today to see if I could bring my pc120 over. It's been below 20 degrees f here for two weeks and at night it dips to around 0. Not sure the machine will even dig through the soil. Thoughts?
I'll watch this thread with interest! How does a septic system work when the ground is frozen? Another aspect of your lives in the cold that I never considered.
That is odd. In my area an independent soil scientist comes out to the site & does a soil test. Sometimes he uses a small backhoe and digs down about 3 feet . Other times he just uses a core probe. He then gives the information & soil test to the county health department and they recommend the type of leach bed & length of runs on it. Pretty strait forward. The inspector from the health department recommends not installing a system when the ground is wet. I also agree with that.
We'll in our are ate frost line is 42". We hardly ever see that but that's the required depth for footings water lines etc. inspector wants him to dig 8' to check the ground seems kind of stupid to me.
Agree 90plow. Digging 8' deep for a leach bed test hole is a bit off the chain unnecessary . The soil scientist that works in my area is pretty old school common sense . Depending on what region the job is in he already has a pretty good idea on the soil type and what he will find as the USDA has had this stuff mapped out for years with soil survey's www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/soilsurvey/soils/survey/state/ He mostly gives advice on the best area on the site to install the leach bed . Makes sure the terrain isn't to steep or to close to a waterway.
Out here we dig perk holes to 10' depth. Sounds like a similar process otherwise. County inspector watches you dig and then tells you what kind and how big a system to install. I've never heard of winter and summer test holes.
Around this part of NY the usual scenario is to find a suitable site for the septic system, Hand dig the actual perc. holes do the test if they are within the parameters the County inspector comes out to witness the perc. rates himself. Then the deep holes are dug usually in the center and the 4 corners . Holes are 6' they will then tell you what system they recommend or you can have an engineer do the same thing but is usually a very simple affair. The critical part is the timed test they time how long it takes the water to drop 1". No testing is done after Nov 1st or so the ground is to wet or starting to freeze. Steve
They told my buddy they want to see the ground when it's wet. I said nothing's wet it's frozen solid! I don't like moving my machines in the ice and I really don't like beating on it to get through the solid ice. Just seeing how everyone else deals with it. I told him to go fight the town on this as they were already at his house inspected the first perc tests and he paid $700 for the machine now they say do it again and if I don't do it he's paying another $700.
In Maryland most of our soil requires that the perc be done during wet months they determine when it is wet enough to start testing by monitoring wells checking ground water level. They do the testing when it is wet because you still want your septic to work when the ground is wet and the water table is at its highest. Our percs range in depth from 1'' to 25'' they mostly stop at 25'' because it is hard to find a hoe to dig much deeper and they require you dig 4'' feet past your perc test to verify no ground water in 1 hole. We are required to dig 3 holes per lot spread about 75'' apart in a triangle. The frozen ground would stop the shallow test but the deeper ones we just dig through as it only freezes 1'' to 1.5'' Our tests are done by county health dept. with the land owner hireing someone to do the digging. So 99% of all the percs I dig are done from Feb 1 - April 1.