Problem with septic drain field

Patriot_RAM

Hey Guys,

I have a problem with my septic drain field that I'm hoping you can offer some advice on. The house and septic system are only a year and a half old. The septic system is a 1500 gallon pump system. The tank is down the hill by the house. From there, it uses a pump to pump it up the hill to the back of the back yard. Up there, there is a hydrosplitter that distributes it to seven leech lines. The first line is the shortest of the seven (not sure if this matters).

The problem that I'm having is the ground above the first leach line is wet. Really wet. It's wet for the entire length of the line and has been for a while. The ground above the other six lines is completely dry. The hydrosplitter has a seperate run to each of the seven lines.

I've described the system, but am not a plumber, and don't know anything about how a hydrosplitter works. Does anybody have an idea of where the problem may lie? The installer has gone out of business.

Thanks,

David

AllanJ

A hydrosplitter is supposed to balance the flow to the various leach field lines, here, taking into account the first line's being shorter.

__________________
The disadvantages of crab apple trees. In summer, the apples are too sour to pick and eat. In winter the birds come and leave dropping all over the place.

Patriot_RAM

Thank you for the quick reply. Is there any way to adjust the flow to the first line to compensate and help even it out?

Thanks again,

David

Patriot_RAM

bump...

Bondo

Ayuh,... If what you're calling a "hydrosplitter", is what I know as a D-box, or distribution box,...
The flows are controled by the pitch of the piping....
If the short pipe is set to Low,.. Dig it up,+ raise the junction slightly to move the water to the other flows...

Patriot_RAM

My understanding is that when the dirty water is pumped out of the tank, it is pumped to the hydrosplitter, which distributes flow to each leach line. Since I can't gravity flow to the hydrosplitter, it is pumped there.

Does anybody know if this flow can be adjusted for the first of the seven lines? Surely some of you have worked on septic systems!

Thanks,

David

AllanJ

I think a hydrosplitter has adjustable vanes or baffles inside to balance the flow to the various outlet pipes, but I haven't seen the inside of one.

__________________
The disadvantages of crab apple trees. In summer, the apples are too sour to pick and eat. In winter the birds come and leave dropping all over the place.

Grampa Bud

I put in my own septic system 29 years ago, but I've never heard of a "hydrosplitter". It sounds kind of like an octopus version of the dropbox. The drop box had 2 inlets on opposite sides of the box near the bottom of the box. On the 3rd (of 4 sides) was an inlet near the top of the box. The fourth side had no inlets. The dirty water ran through the boxes to the farthest line where it would fill up the drop box and run out into the leech field run to seep down into the ground. As the field got wet farther away the water would run out slower and slower until the line would fill up the preceding box and start feeding the preceding line with the farthest line. The area that stayed driest the longest was closest to the house. I never had to do any maintainance on the system other than dumping a gallon of ROEBIC K37 down the toilet every 1-2 years. It never needed pumping until the village made me take it out when we went to city sewer. That was 29 years ago. Without seeing your field I believe you may have a disconnected or crushed pipe leading out into that particular leech run. The water has no where to go and is backing up at the damage site on top of the ground. Get a septic guy to take look at it cause it is going to be a mess.