Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire ? about leach pits

you have what we call a cesspool around here. basically just a hole that everything goes into without a leach field. if it was me, i'd put in a tank of some sorts, either concrete or poly, with baffles on the outboard line. then i'd dig a ditch about 3 feet deep, 2 feet wide and at least 50 feet long. put 1 foot of 2b stone into the ditch and run perforated 4" pipe out of the tank and on top of the 2b and then cover it with another foot of 2b. then cover the 2b with a layer of geotextile fabric or tar paper and fill the rest in with dirt. ideally you would have maybe three of these ditches with a concrete distribution box between the tank and the ditches. but as was said above, a lot depends on your soil type. clay acts like a big bowl and holds the leachate in. thats why you want to spread the leach field across as big of an area as you can afford instead of making it like a round hole with stone in it.

That would be a proper fix but he wants to put it in his driveway so that won't work very well.

Our field drain has the infiltrator chambers, those plastic Quonset hut looking things. It's been in place for 22 years with no problems at all yet. They're very fast and easy to install. Just dig a flat bottomed trench and drop them in. I don't know if they're strong enough to put under a driveway, though. You'd have to check that out.

I guess I shouldn't say no problems at all, but not what you'd expect. My drain field is in a pasture that's sprinkler irrigated. I have to water extra over the drain field or the grass will dry out over the drain lines. Pasture grass roots go deep into the trenches and it gets too dry to stay green. The drain system works very well for it to get that dry down that deep.

Been doing some homework

Years back my Uncle told me about putting Lye in the system to break up the grease and soap build up.

He had 3 girls and a boy and was contently digging new pits in his back yard for the grey water.
His ground is solid Hard pan clay with no drainage to talk about. After he started adding the Lye his digging new holes stopped.

I am running an experiment for myself before I start digging my driveway up for a new leach field.

I put some Roebic Septic System Cleaner in the tank yesterday.

I know on the other topic about Tank additives that they do just about nothing but the grease and sludge are a different item in the pool than the Turds.

It has rained for a solid 24 hours starting yesterday night and the pit started filling up after I had it pumped to the bottom.

The sides of the of the pit looked like they were plastered brick with little drain openings.

in a bit when it clears up I am going to go inspect the pit and see if the Lye has done anything at all.

The product I put in says to let it sit for 24 hours before using it.

So my experiment has started and I expect I will have to add a couple more bottles of this stuff before the system will be functional again If I can get it functional.

A cheap fix and no hard work if it works on a system that was probably put in in the early 40s.

Thanks for all of your advice it got me investigating in the right direction

Measured the water level this morning and then just now.

This morning it was at 24" with water dripping in from all the rain we got yesterday. When I opened it up there was steam inside the pit.

Just now it was around 20" with water still dripping in from the rain yesterday. No steam this afternoon.


It can not be plugged up 100% if it is moving.

after we take showers tonight I am gunna dump another bottle of the stuff in and tomorrow afternoon when I get home I will check the level again.