Winter Protection for Your Drain Field

When you have uncontrolled water runoff from rainfall or snow over your septic tank and septic system drain field it’s a threat to your whole septic system. With water accumulating around your septic system it can over saturate the soil in your drain field and infiltrate your tank, causing a host of problems including complete system failure.

You can't control the weather but you can prepare your septic system and avoid the most common winter septic system issue: drain field failure.

Water Tightened Lid and Pipes

Water tightening: With snow, ice, and rain, a bad lid or pipe can quickly flood your system with ground water. Too much of this ground water can flood your tank and cause excessive strain of your drain field, leading to a costly failure and a back-up in your home. Having your lids tightened and checked with our free septic stress test during your next tank pumping can stop this damage before it happens. We can also add a riser to your tank to stop ground water infiltration.

Risers: Adding a riser, an extension from your buried tank to the top of the soil, can help keep ground water from infiltrating your tank while also making the tank easier to pump and clean.

Caps: Capping the ends of drain field pipes suspected of failure can help monitor the level of effluent coming into the drain field.

Stay Away From Cleaners

No Antifreeze: Your pipes will not freeze so there is no need to use antifreeze products. Not only can using these products ruin your septic system they can ruin your land when they enter the drain field.

Schedule an Inspection

Distribution Boxes: Though every septic system is designed based on varying factors including your home and property size and the soil on the property, most of the newer septic systems have distribution boxes. These distribution boxes help carry the effluent, or liquid from the tank, in an orderly manner into the drain field to be cleaned by the soil. Distribution boxes can help keep your drain field from becoming oversaturated. Sometimes distribution boxes can be added to a septic system drain field.

Inspections: The Distribution Box Inspection can help determine issues with your drain field we cannot see such as crushed pipes, root infiltration, clogs, or even evidence of a failure from the presence of solids. This inspection allows you to stop a failure or back up before it happens. We off this 30-minute inspection in our septic stress test, which is free with every septic tank pumping.

Septic systems face many issues during the winter months the biggest and most costly being a drain field failure. These tips can help save your system and your drain field. If you have any questions about your septic system, the drain field or any of these tips Westfall Septic are always a phone call away.