Septic Tank

[thewoodlands]

Is there a safe weight you can drive over a septic tank, ours is a cement 1000 or 1500 gallon tank.

I was just wondering if the Rhino (about 1200 pounds) or the RTV ( around 2300) pulling a trail mower would be ok.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I think you’d be fine with either 1 of them, but I’m sure age and condition play a big part in how well that’d go. 2000lbs is pretty spread out by the time it gets through 18” of soil.

 

[thewoodlands]

I think you’d be fine with either 1 of them, but I’m sure age and condition play a big part in how well that’d go. 2000lbs is pretty spread out by the time it gets through 18” of soil.

It will be 23 years this November, we have it pumped out every three years.

Thanks.

 

[tlc1976]

I think you’d be fine with either 1 of them, but I’m sure age and condition play a big part in how well that’d go. 2000lbs is pretty spread out by the time it gets through 18” of soil.

I agree with this.

I think the bigger issue is to make sure you don’t drive over the drainfield and compact it.

 

[Highbeam]

Depth is a huge consideration. Deeper tanks are better at tolerating a load over them.

Mine is shallow and I don’t even want to walk on it. Single chamber so no divider wall which works better but is even weaker at withstanding loads.

I don’t want it to cave in and I go for a swim!

 

[brenndatomu]

An ATV or SXS shouldn't be any big deal, but I wouldn't be driving a vehicle over it, especially anything heavy, even a loaded pickup.
But as has been stated, age, condition, depth and design are key.

 

[Ashful]

My prior house had a decommissioned septic tank, which caved in under the load of a moving truck, when the prior owners arrived in the middle of the night after driving from Michigan. The neighbors would like to tell the story of being awakened at 2am, "hello, we are your new neighbors, can you help us get the moving truck out of the septic tank?"

 

[Highbeam]

Where I work we require a decommissioned tank to be smashed in and filled with dirt or gravel. I won’t let them hook up to sewer until that is done.

 

[begreen]

Depth is a huge consideration. Deeper tanks are better at tolerating a load over them.

Mine is shallow and I don’t even want to walk on it. Single chamber so no divider wall which works better but is even weaker at withstanding loads.

I don’t want it to cave in and I go for a swim!

I'm nervous every time I mow over the septic tank. After reading this thread, now I know why. At least it's an old cement tank and not a steel one like this was.

 

[Ashful]

We have a fireplace built atop our septic tank. Not sure how that was allowed, but there it is.

The one that caved at my old house was very old, hand-built brick beehive job. House was built 1877, and I doubt the septic system was original to the house, but may have been installed relatively shortly thereafter. It had been converted to public sewer before I came to own it, but I guess the old tank never was caved and filled, until done by that moving truck.

 

[Highbeam]

What really scares me is those plastic manhole lids that are for a tank that is like 6 feet below grade. If your kid is standing on that lid and it fails he will fall 6 feet and land in a pool of sewage too deep to stand on the bottom. In the dark, not much oxygen, no ladder. I don’t even know how to rescue him if I saw it.

 

[Ashful]

Our system is all concrete, now. Concrete tank, concrete riser, concrete lid, even a concrete distribution box. But since a water softener has been dumping salt into it for at least 30 years, its condition may be less than ideal. A separate gray water drain for the water softener has been recently added to the "short list", which is presently a pretty long list, now that I've realized the issue.

 

[blades]

That is the one thing with septic in my area . they require everything to be dumped in the septic including water softner- just don't make sense to me, backwash is hard on concrete.

 

[brenndatomu]

What really scares me is those plastic manhole lids that are for a tank that is like 6 feet below grade. If your kid is standing on that lid and it fails he will fall 6 feet and land in a pool of sewage too deep to stand on the bottom. In the dark, not much oxygen, no ladder. I don’t even know how to rescue him if I saw it.

That absolutely is a scary scenario!

 

[Ashful]

That is the one thing with septic in my area . they require everything to be dumped in the septic including water softner- just don't make sense to me, backwash is hard on concrete.

Same here. If I go to a gray water system, I'll have to undo it when I sell. But a lot of damage can be avoided between now and then.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We have a fireplace built atop our septic tank. Not sure how that was allowed, but there it is.

The one that caved at my old house was very old, hand-built brick beehive job. House was built 1877, and I doubt the septic system was original to the house, but may have been installed relatively shortly thereafter. It had been converted to public sewer before I came to own it, but I guess the old tank never was caved and filled, until done by that moving truck.

How did tank cleanings go back then? When full was a new one dug or was someone lucky enough to go down with a shovel and bucket to cleaning out? In my locale outhouses were still top of the food chain.

 

[Ashful]

I'm not really sure, Limestone. That house had an outhouse built into one corner of the carriage barn, which was original to the 1870's construction, as did every other house in that little village. I'm not even sure when they added the septic tank, other than it was very old. I can't imagine emptying it was very fun, prior to modern pump trucks.

That neighborhood was converted to public sewer at least 10 years (or more) before I moved in, and I think the presently-used septic tanks were caved in or removed when the hookup to public sewer was made. I suspect this one that the moving truck found was probably decommissioned 40 years prior, and just forgotten, as it was probably not in use by any recent resident.

One interesting thing about that house is that it never had an owner for more than 2-3 years, all the way back to 1877. My stay of 13 years was the longest residency in that house by roughly 4x. I even had trouble keeping house sitters, since I traveled a lot back then, no one who stayed in that house for more than a few days was ever willing to come back to it. Lots of bumps in the night, if you catch my drift.