The DIY Diaries

Conquering the Monster from the Deep

How to sort your shit when your septic tank system fails

It started with a muddy patch in the far corner of the garden. I thought it was still draining away after the recent rain storms.

I ignored it.

A few weeks later, I saw the patch was still there, and following the mud, I found the source. It appeared the inspection pipe for my septic tank soakaway was overflowing.

But this wasn’t possible: I had paid thousands of dollars four years ago for a new system to be installed, when tree roots had invaded the old one. The company assured me it would last a lifetime. I checked to see when my tank was last emptied, but I didn’t believe it was due, because they usually called me.

Usually.

It turns out that the company had gone bust.

I found a couple of guys advertising in our local parish magazine who promised to come and empty my tank the following afternoon.

The next morning, I spent five hours digging and chipping away at stones and rocks to find the lid of the septic tank. I am a tiny earthling, and my pick axe is not that big either. It was a tough job.

I had a fever and felt like the shit I was digging up. But I was just scraping the last of the mud from the the lid as the guys turned up with their sewage guzzling machine.

The tank was very full but they sucked it all out and I thought that would solve the overflow problem. I felt so ill by then I didn’t care.

That evening, I tested positive for Covid.

When I felt better, I went to check on the muddy patch. It was still there. The white inspection pipe was surrounded by an ominous, wet slime. It stuck up with its little domed cap, like a periscope for the ship of horrors below.

I called the nice guys who had emptied my tank and asked for their advice. After inspecting the site, they determined my soakaway was failing. It seemed I had been ripped off four years ago by a bunch of cowboys who had long disappeared. I couldn’t afford to fork out thousands to another drainage company.

I went into stress mode. I swung from ignoring it and hoping it might go away, to oh shit, what can I do?

Now that I had exposed the lid of the tank, it was getting smelly. The liquid waste was backing up. We had to stop using water in the house, and what little we did use, I had to carry out and empty over the garden. There is a baby in our house and five adults, and with a new baby due any day, I needed a plan.

Enter my superhero, who I call on when the going gets tough. She is a feisty little thing, only five feet two inches, and she wields a mean wee pick axe.

Then I remembered a mate of mine who has a mini digger. I asked if he would help. I then did a ton of research about drainage fields and various kind of drainage pipe. The merits of smooth vs corrugated, punched or unpunched? Which type of gravel we needed? Should we use geotech cloth or not?

I also got advice from my lovely septic tank guys.

And I made a plan.

My mate brought his digger round and showed me how to use it. I wasn’t much good. You need seven hands, all ambidextrous and at least three brains to control them. Given time, I am sure I would get there. I was handy with a shovel and the wheelbarrow though.

We started by digging a trench around the inspection pipe, to see what was going on. A metre below the surface, we found the original soakaway channels, but there was no water in them. We kept digging. Below the bottom of the inspection pipe, we discovered the end of the cowboy soakaway. It was sealed with a large plastic bung. This was strange as it prevented the water from draining into the old and perfectly good channels.

Standing in the trench, which was now almost two metres deep, we kept scraping away at the mud around the plastic cap. Eventually, we prised it away. There was a heavy slurping sound, followed by a sludgy whoosh! And there we were, were waist-deep in a thousand litres of sewage.

Further digging revealed that not only had they blocked off the end of the supposedly infallible soakaway, but they had used no drainage gravel. Cowboys indeed!

The following day, we went on a fun trip to the plumbing supplies’ place. I bought 30 metres of punched drainage pipe, a big pack of geotech cloth and a trenching spade.

Later that day, I had 10 tons of drainage gravel delivered. When the gravel guy saw my punched drainage pipe, he took a sharp intake of breath.

“That’s no bloody good. Look at those! They’re not holes, just tiny slits! They’ll clog up in no time. You need to drill them out!”

Five o’clock in the morning, and I was out on the icy predawn, drilling thousands of 1/2 inch holes in 30 metres of pipe, by torchlight.

We continued to dig our trench until it was a further 16 metres long. After lining the bottom with gravel, we laid a double row of the drainage pipe. There was some leftover pipe, which we connected to the old soakaway channels for added drainage power!

The big moment came when we filled the trench with tons of lovely drainage gravel, leaving a few centimetres for topsoil. I levelled the gravel with my spade and then covered it with geotech cloth. The cloth prevents the mud from clogging up the gravel. Finally, we replaced the topsoil.

Then we danced a jig of joy over the trench.

Those few days were exhausting. I was still recovering from Covid, and I had worked every day from dawn till dusk. My back had given up on me as I ignored the constant ache. Yet, I was on top of the world! It was the best feeling!

I had conquered the monster of the deep. I had a soakaway to be proud of, and I knew exactly how it worked.

Oh, the joy of being able to use water again and let it drain away down the plughole. We could do the washing and have showers!

I was so happy about how my mate and I had worked together. I told him he had done most of it, but he assured me without my labours and research and sheer determination, he would never have dared attempt it! We were both empowered!

I took my hat off to us, and my inner superhero.

I gained some great metaphors for life from this experience:

• Better to deal with your shit now before it back-flows and poisons your entire system.
• Don’t take simple things like water and drainage for granted.
• You are far more capable than you believe.
• Unleash your inner superhero more often.
• Where there’s a will there’s a way.
• Friends with diggers rock!

I really hope you have enjoyed my story.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Napoleon Hill:

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

This story was written for a new publication from Amanda Laughtland called The DIY Diaries.

You can read Amanda’s original article here: