LJV wrote:I also have a septic tank set-up.
Start by having your septic tank pumped out. Make sure that they clean out the little screen filter at the entry point. A full tank can cause the symptoms you describe.
Yes. The liquid drains as normal, but septic tanks fill with sludge that does not drain into the drain field and it has to be removed every now and again.
Have this done every two years.
That depends on where you live, the condition of your drainfield, the size of your septic tank, the size of your family, and what you put down the drains. A big family with kids needs far more frequent pump-outs than a couple. We bought our house from a couple, and we are a couple. The previous couple had never pumped the septic tank out in the 22 years since the house was built. We had it pumped out "just because", to to make sure the system was not broken. (It was--we had to replace a distribution box lid.) It was not full. Once in 10-15 years is plenty often for us. But you have to pump it out twice before you know how often you have to pump it out.
Review what you and the wife CAN and CAN'T put down the toilet. It doesn't take much to foul the works up.
Yes. The ONLY product made by man (okay, there's just no way to say that) that should go in the toilet is toilet paper. Not Kleenex. Not paper towels. Not feminine products. Not cell phones. Not baby bottles. Not diapers. Not old socks. Not pages out of the Sears catalog.
My sister was buying a vacation lake house out in Mid-Michigan. Knowing she had never had a septic system, I warned her to verified it's condition.
She didn't.
It cost her over $8000 to fix the problem...
Assuming the problem was a flooded basement, the moisture of it being not the major problem. Our house has a 4" drain that goes right over my ham radio station, so every time my wife flushes, I hear it. That's a check. If I hear her flush and don't hear the resulting flow, time to raise the panic flag and shut off the water to prevent forgetting. It won't drain into the basement, though, because our basement drains are gray water only and go into a dry well. Point is: Know your system. Don't guess.
Finally, DO NOT put chemicals into your septic system. Chemicals strong enough to repair a major blockage will kill the bacteria and then your septic tank will go anaerobic. That is a Bad Thing. You have been warned. Your main drain will have a clean-out fitting somewhere--probably a 4" plastic screw-in plug poking up out of the yard, or an angle fitting in 4" black pipe in the basement with a plug in the straight end. Those are the cleanouts. Remove the cap, and clean out the block using mechanical means.
This is about 85% likely to be the septic tank needing to be pumped out. You are overfilling it and it is backing up into the house. You wait a while, and it drains down through the drain field. As soon as air appears downstream of the full toilet, it will flush itself and everything will work again, until your next big flow of waste into the tank. It might be a blockage, but the pump-out is the first step no matter what.
For the pump-out, they will come and dig a hole to expose the top of the tank (if there isn't a ground-level cover, which there usually isn't), remove the lid, and put a big hose down there to vacuum out the contents. Costs some hundreds of dollars, as you have discovered, but there's no avoiding it. That's what you pay instead of monthly sewage fees.
By the way, Joe, pumping your septic tank out onto the ground, even out in the country where you are, is likely to earn you a citation from the county health inspectors. You'll get a fine where you are. Here, it would probably be jail time. And it takes more than a couple of days for the smell to dissipate, too.
Rick "who has dealt with a septic overflow for one friend, and a cesspool that had lost its permeability in another life" Denney
