How to Install Septic Tank and Leach Field (with COSTS!)

[Music] welcome back to our channel folks and if you're new to our channel my name is brad and i'm out here on our 20 acres in northwest florida and we've got something pretty cool going on today i took the day off work to meet the plumber because today piney grove is getting its very first ever septic tank that's probably a lot more exciting for us than it is for you but uh we're gonna document this progress and show you what we're doing here i'm gonna do my best to explain it and uh walk around and show you the process stay tuned this one should be interesting early interesting for us got a cat 305.5e excavator digging out the hole for the septic tank and then the lines are going to run from the excavator to where the truck that's holding the septic tank is there's going to be three drain lines that run almost to the pole barn so the guys that did hvac didn't really do us any favors here when they put our hvac in so you can see right there is the septic line coming out of the house and they had a dig up under the hvac and then they're going to go behind this gentleman standing here they're going to go over to where the excavator is digging and that's where our septic tank's going to be right there i don't know how many gallons the septic tank is [Music] but that's where it's going so the drain lines will run here they're gonna go pretty much up to the pole barn [Music] and there is no wasted effort or wasted motion with this excavator [Music] you can see they've got a laser level set up and they've got their stick and uh he just hits the bottom of that hole and tells dustin you know keep digging deeper so when we talk about our pond we talk about the soil that might be at the bottom of our pond it's likely this type of real loose clay it'll sort of kind of make a ball but not really that's probably why our our pond is leaking because it's not really the right type of clay that you need to seal the bottom of a pond but dustin called me this week and it was it was monday it was yesterday actually and he said hey i can put in your septic tomorrow and i was like uh and i'm working full-time you know i i can't really get take off the day tomorrow he said well i got an opening in my schedule tomorrow he goes if you don't take that he said it'll be several weeks before i can get to you and i said okay i'll meet you at the property tomorrow he said he's got to get this thing dug and ready because he's got to meet an inspector at another site you know septic tanks are highly regulated you got to get a permit we had to uh we paid an environmental specialist to come out and dig down in the soil make sure it was the right kind of soil for septic systems the inspector has to come out here he'll inspect the trenches make sure they're the right depth and then there'll be a final inspection on the water line and what i learned today because i'm running the water line and luckily i didn't run the water line already because that would have been a problem but the water line cannot be anywhere anywhere closer than two feet to the septic tank and i was planning on running the water line just straight from the house to the well the wells behind me but that would have been a problem so it's it's kind of good that i didn't put in the water line already so these little tunnels go at the bottom of the drain field and the liquids from your septic tank will travel downhill through these tunnels and dirt will be on top of this this thing will be two three four feet underground i'm not sure exactly how much whatever the specs say on the permit all these cavities in here allow that fluid to flow and then it just seeps into the ground so septic tank the tank over there takes your solids it's got two baffles or two containers within that square tank and one of them is for your solids and when your solids fill up uh one baffle or one section then the liquids flow into the other section and then the pipe coming out of the second section will go into this drain field and go into that little space right there and then all that will just flow downhill and there'll be three sets of these i think when it when it's all said and done that's high up on the tank i would say that's the entry point coming out of your house to there and then probably on the back end it's probably yep there's a hole there that's either where again that's either the entry point or that's the exit point your sewage pipe will go in there and then go to your drain field all right the septic tank is going in [Music] so [Music] [Music] so this side would be the entry into the tank so you can see grade there on the side how deep the hole was dug it's about a foot under a little little shallower than one foot and is there a riser or anything it'll just be covered with dirt so the cleanouts are those two round holes with the rebar handles and that's when your septic gets full and you need it to be pumped out you need those removed so they can get a pump truck in there and suck out all the solids or whatever needs to come out of there so you need to know where they are so you can tell you know a couple years from now when it needs to be pumped you can tell the truck where it is now sometimes people will put what's called risers above that and risers are just like a plastic shield and they let you know where those cleanouts are above grade but this will be completely below grade and you'll have to dig with a shovel to actually get down to those handles i'll probably do something to fix that or make it maybe i'll put my own risers above it but for now it's going to be like this [Music] so [Music] i don't know if it's the kid in all of us or what but there's just something cool about watching an excavator work especially someone that's a really good operator like there's no wasted movement if that bucket is moving it's got a purpose and the purpose is to move dirt his feet are moving the tracks while his hands are moving the boom in the bucket using an excavator is hard enough but being able to move the tracks move the house and articulate the bucket and the boom i i can't do it i mean i've been trying and i've been practicing but it's just it's too much going on for me [Music] okay i'm standing up here on top of the dumpster getting some of this footage but he's just back filling the septic tank now the septic tank is in and i was talking to one of the guys there on the crew and i said well how often does this thing need to be cleaned out and he said about every five years he said the solids are on one side like i explained earlier they go to liquids on the other side then the liquids go to your drain field he said but then there's a screen before your liquids go out into your drain field in the pipe you should clean that screen once a year i'm thinking i don't want to clean that screen once a year that sounds like a very fun job that sounds like a job for mike rowe a dirty job [Music] so what we're doing here is we're coming out of the septic tank and we're going to go to a manifold and that manifold will split the discharge into three different channels and we're digging the first channel right now [Music] so we keep working on this first bay or this first drain field here and i guess he's going to do three different lines i was thinking he was going to open all the ground up but i think he's just going to do enough to put the drain field in and then he'll dig another channel to the left of the camera and then another channel even farther to the left closer to the mega shed well i think the end of the drain field will be the end of the plastic that's laid out so right where the dozer blade is now on the excavator should be the end of the drain field and you can see we got good separation on that oak tree to the right all right so what we're doing here is we're starting the second uh channel for the drain field so he said there's about a two foot separation between the two channels so this is number two and then we'll have channel number three and that will be the drain field so you can see it's a simple process you know crap flows downhill water flows downhill but it's always easy when someone else is doing the work this thing has to be precise because if there's any backup along the way as it's going down that drain field then you're gonna have problems right and this is something you do once in a lifetime on a septic you may have to clean out the tank every five years or so and maybe do some annual maintenance maybe put some enzymes or something in your septic tank but as far as this drain field this is once in a lifetime so they got to get it right and they are dialed in with that laser level and they're getting it an eighth of an inch of perfection as they get that thing sloping to the north which would be towards the pole barn [Music] okay now we're starting the third drain field right there you can see the other two are in completely and he's digging the third one right now [Music] i saw the permit and i saw the layout of the septic and i didn't think the ground really would was large enough or this area was large enough for the septic but now as i see it going in it obviously is large enough and you know the permit and all that was right in the drawing was right but uh yeah i was kind of skeptical we could get three drain fails in here but it's working out pretty good [Music] so here we are we're at the end of the last drain field drain field number three he's digging the last section out i think we're right around 11 o'clock and we have a 12 30 inspection with whoever inspects that this is installed correctly i don't think it's a county inspector i think it's a state inspector so what we got here is the plumbers have to dig up under the hvac because that white pipe right there is the septic line coming out of the house and then that'll flow where he's shoveling here over to the actual septic tank but the hvac guys didn't do us any favors by covering up that pipe with this unit all right we're doing the manifold now one pipe becomes three pipes or three drain fields [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] the final piece this will connect the last drain field to the manifold just got to throw some glue on there pull it together we got the inspector waiting so there's no pressure no pressure at all [Music] a very precise compression of that joint [Music] all right we good [Music] all right we're good ready for inspection so we've passed the inspection and we've used some spray foam or yeah spray foam sealing foam around the two cleanouts of the septic tank and we've started the backfill so the only thing we have left is i got to run a water line from the left side of the ac the hvac there and i got to be two feet away from the septic tank so we talked to the inspector and we figured out a good route for the electric for the water line and then once i put the water line in i leave it exposed and he comes out for a final inspection okay i didn't record it but we passed the final inspection the inspector came out here and he checked a whole bunch of grades he went inside the house and made sure it was the right number of bedrooms he put a you know level on certain areas we used the laser level and he checked all of the drain fields marked off everything he checked the um he checked the distance to the well and the distance to the end of the shed just all these setback distances that are part of having a septic permit or part of having a septic he checked all them and we got a clean bill of health everything's good to go so we're starting to backfill the drain fields now and we've sealed the top of the septic tank there's a clean out there by the hvac you'll see a a y type of clean out there this thing's pretty much installed now we just have to button it up and after they're done back filling i'll put some t-posts around there to keep people from driving over it we have a working septic now even though we don't have water to the house it's always easier to fill in a trench than to dig a trench so he's already got this about one third filled in in just a couple minutes so we're doing the final backfill around the septic tank and the drain field that was the closest to the house you see the tank is still exposed we filled my hand around the hvac over there and packed that in a little bit here's the manifold about half covered [Music] better get out of his way i think he's going to get on the other side of this and push it [Music] there we go a lot of that hill moved in one push [Music] so [Music] so i asked dustin if he wanted me to get the tractor and back blade that and get it smooth and he said no he wanted to work it with the machine and get it packed in and get it bladed the way he went he wanted it done which is understandable but i was trying to minimize the impact of the grass that was left there for erosion control but he wanted it packed a certain way and since it's them that's installing it and providing a warranty it works for me all right folks behind me you see a completed 1050 gallon septic system with the three drain fields that we've been showing throughout this process this septic is now completely installed ready to go you know it's gravity fed system it doesn't have any sort of electric it's not a mound type of system so as soon as we get water to the house we can start using this septic tank now what it what does something like this cost the original estimate was for 3 700 but that was back in 2021 it's taken a while to get to this point to where we could install this tank so today's price was 4 400. um i was talking to dustin just a minute ago when i stroked that checkout and i you know was writing it out and i said man that's kind of stinky that it's a little bit more expensive than what we talked about last year but i understand with the price of everything going up you know inflation is real and he said if you called today and ordered this same exact septic tank he said it would be five thousand dollars so that's what it cost this is a 1600 square foot house with two bathrooms two bedrooms and septic tanks are based on the amount of bedrooms you have the inspector actually went in the house and looked and counted the bedrooms to be sure on his checklist and uh that's the size tank and the size system that this size house needs so obviously a bigger house needs a bigger system or a house with more bedrooms and more bathrooms needs a bigger system therefore it will cost more but that's that's what we've got we've got another thing checked off here at piney grove so hopefully you enjoyed today's video i learned a lot today i've never installed a septic tank before hopefully you enjoyed this and maybe you learned something too if you did please click that like button subscribe if you haven't already and share with your friends otherwise we'll catch you on the next one take care y'all [Music] you

Channel: Piney Grove Homestead

Views: 101,697

Keywords: #countrylife, #farmlife, #florida, #kubota, #Kubotatractor, #final grade, #grading, #frontendloader, #septictank, #septic, #drainfield

Id: cKGRqR4KI0Y

Length: 22min 21sec (1341 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022