Back in the 90s I installed a 1000 gallon concrete septic tank at my parents home. At the time I drew up a diagram for the covers and left it with my Dad. I've since inherited the house, Dad passed of Alzheimer's and the diagram seems lost. I'm renting the home out now and want to have the tank pumped but am having trouble locating the clean out. My tenant just happens to be a utilities locator and we've tried several methods to find it without success. We started with a metal detector to detect the rebar handle on the cover but there's so much iron in the soil we're getting nothing but false readings. We tried to trace the pipe to the tank, but the house was built when they used asphalt pipe and his detectors won't trace it. We even tried to send a metal snake down the pipe to charge but there seems to be a trap in the house we can't get past. He's exhausted all his techniques and I've dug some holes where I thought it might be without success. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm at the point where I may have to take my machine there and start digging. I'd like to avoid this both for the risk of causing damage and probably ripping up half the yard before I find it. Trouble is I don't recall how deep it was and with 20 years of overgrowth things look so much different. My memory isn't what it used to be either.
A pointed piece of 1/4" rod with a handle on top works well as a probe.
Tile Probe? Concrete truck? No.......... better not use the concrete truck Steve..... Bad idea Sorry LOL.
Run a steel phish tape out the drain piping and have the renter hook his locator to it, the signal will start getting funny when the tape is in the tank. Snakes are hard to get a signal on for some reason, but a solid metal phish tape seems to work pretty good.
Mitch, I was thinking about that to map out the tank, but there's so damn much shale there I can't tell if I'm hitting the tank or just a rock. td25c, what's a tile probe? playindirt, the pipe is under the concrete floor. I've got a clean out in the floor, but there seems to be a trap under there as well that we can't get anything past. The house was built in 1962, I don't have any idea of the layout under the floor.
Tile probe is what Mitch was describing in post #2 www.benmeadows.com/ams-heavy-duty-extendible-tileprobe_36814889/
I don't know how things were done up your way but around here there is usually only a foot of dirt over the tank. If this holds true for you also take a three foot piece of 1/2in rebar and drive it in with a three pound hammer. You will know when you hit the tank or are getting. We do this a lot to find buried manholes.
Witching rods, get you some old school water well driller to help you out. 1,000 gallon tank full of "water", a good hand should be able to find it for you.
The tank is located on a slope and the field is quite a bit lower than the house. One end is going to be quite a bit lower than grade that the other. The pipe runs under the floor as I mentioned and at the house the floor is about 5' below grade. The grade slopes quite a bit from that point to the field, probably 30 feet from the house. As I recall the tank is on the edge of the field into the slope. Damn I wish I could remember!!
Steve , is it still working at all ?
Steve; If you decide to make a tile probe be sure to weld collar just above the pointed tip. That way it makes hole in the ground slightly larger than the rod. It will be a lot easier to pull the rod out. td25c's link shows the rod and you can see the enlarged section just above the tip when you scroll over it. I also had to find my septic tank and really didn't remember where it was. I had to dig a trench until I found it.
Don't knock bigshows idea Ive seen um do it for where to drill a well
Get a plumber with a camera that has a locating sonde in the camera this will allow it to be located spot on from the ground. I locate them with my Envirosight push cam all the time with this method.
they also make a "flushable" sonde that u put fishing line on to retrieve once you flush it down to the tank. you track it off a 512hz transmitter, with each flush it goes farther. or u can pull the toilet & use a camera & locate the camera. most bigger plumbing companies here are charging 145. to do this service now. good luck finding it them tanks have a way of moving from where we put them!! lol
My neighbour found his by running hot water into it melting the snow above it. Maybe a digital thermometer could find it.
The hot water and they have those thermal imagers these days, if you can get your hands on one, about 6 in the morning I would think the ground would be cool enough it would show up well.
That flushable transponder sounds like what I need, like I mentioned there seems to be a trap that we can't get a snake past. I never thought to call a plumber, I will make some calls tomorrow
Steve, Local health department doesn't have a copy of as built?
I like that idea with the hot water. You might want to give your local fire dept. a call and see if a donation to them would get someone out there with their thermal imaging camera. We have one at ours and you would be amazed at how sensitive they can be. We stood in the parking lot once and watched a couple of deer feed in the brush from about a 100 yards away.
dist3, I don't think they kept records yet when the house was built. The hot water idea is a good one but I don't think I'd have enough hot water for it to appear on camera, it's under at least 2' of soil. That's a lot of ground to heat and I've only got a 40 gallon electric heater there. I called the guy I use to pump the tanks and he's got a transponder he can flush. A little pricey, but in the long run it will beat all the digging and risk of damage I'd have otherwise. My sister has all the paperwork on the house, she's going through it again to see if she can find that diagram.
Steve , wish u were closer so I could help. We kind of pride ourselves in always finding the tank location . Ive been searching for them for almost 20yrs everyday when we go to pump. The SONDE should do it. Heres a link to one type. It does not need any string , you retrieve it at the inlet of tank. http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/RIDGID-Floating-Sonde-Transmitter-2RPC3 Good Luck. doug
That sounds like what the woman I spoke to was talking about. She called it a sound transmitter but said their recovery rate on them isn't so good. I wish you were closer too lol! Do these things typically make it to the tank with a single flush or does it take several?
When you find the tank, don't worry about a diagram, etch the distance on a wall somewhere near where the tank comes out of the house off two corners of the house to pin point it, we do this for every tank we find and install, so in the future we know, we've even been known to write it or etch it on the wall where the pipe leaves the house too in the basement. As for finding it all the suggestions I've had are already covered, witching does pretty good for following the lines after you have someone flush water, do it as the water leaves the house, we've had great luck with that, even works to run water in the sink and locate the laterals out, put in some flags and after you have a few lines marked, figure out where the tank is at is how we do it. If you can witch or find someone that can, you should also be able to figure out how deep it is in the ground too.
I'm with you Randy. I plan to draw a diagram, laminate it and attach it to the inside wall next to the breaker box. That's where the pipe exits the house. I'm probably going to put a riser on the tank too, especially if it's down deep. It may come all the way to grade, the field is in an area that isn't used as yard. I'll also mark it with a sturdy marker if it's below grade.
I did it the hard way hickory stick backhoe operator, off the side of the house in a line , lucky it was only 4 ' from where I started. I bought an old hit miss motor in Lagrangeville off 55
I put a steel T post at the corner of the tank and another at the D box. If the women holler about it just plant them a bush to disguise it. My own tank has plastic sheeting over the clean out manholes with a tire on top of each one. Makes it real easy to just scratch with the teeth and find it. The plastic keeps the dirt from filling in the gap around the cover and they pop right out.
I put EJIW 1040 manhole castings on top of my tank cleanout manholes
im with the thermal location posts. In a couple of weeks you should get a dustin of snow... look then, it will be the bare spot
At my pops place, I covered the cover with a 3x3 foot piece of 1/4 inch plate, the side effect of remembering was that its very easy to find with a metal detector in that with a little fine adjustment, I made a perfect square with marking paint even buried a foot and a half. I used the plate cause his cover was getting a little weak