Any experts Sand Mound septic pump issue?


Purchased my retirement home last June and I am doing some upgrades. I did not think I having a septic issue at this time BUT since I am going to have a new driveway put in near the septic system so I wanted to make sure all is working correctly.

I popped the cover on the pump chamber, found it filled with water, if it were working correctly it should have been nearly empty.

I pulled the pump to test it and realized there is no controller for it any where in the house, shouldn't there be one?

I see 2 sets of romex going from the tank into a piece of PVC that should be going back to the house BUT at the breaker box I can not find any breakers labelled for the sump pump....

Not sure I am an expert, but I do have an above ground septic mound system. Had it for over 20 years, dug out the old sand, and redid it a few years ago. My pump turns off and on by a float. When it reaches a certain level, the pump kicks on pumping the gray water to the mound, and out through a system of drain tubes. As the water level drops, the float turns off. At the mound, there is a manual, circular switch that rotates every time the pump turns off. There are 16 drain tubes in the mound made of pvc. The switch turns 2 on at a time. Then when the pump turns off, it rotates to the next 2, and so on. That way you get even dispersion across the whole mound, and your water doesn't just drain in one spot. The newer models are likely computerised, but probably work on the same principle. Hope that helps.

Contact a local professional.

Should be a float down in the sump you pulled the pump out of.

Being they are often small 120 volt pumps that require little power they seldom have a motor controller like you might find operating a well pump.

They may have just extended the float wire and made it up in a box with the 120 volt power for the pump.

That'd account for the two runs of romex.

The float will be the controller, it's just a switch leg, operates exactly like a light switch in you home but on demand when the liquid level in the tank rises to the level it trips the float.

You run a better chance of seeing water in that tank than not.
The only time it would be empty or even low is immediately after the pump had cycled and evacuated the tank.

If the pump or float wasn't working that tank should have been over flowing when you opened it.

Put the pump back in, grab a water hose and start filling the tank and see what happens.

At some point the pump should kick on and pump the tank down.
If it does, you'll get a better look in that tank and should be able to see your float.

You may have a high level float that would trigger a alarm which could also account for the second wire you've found.

Since the thoughtless bastereds didn't label the power source all you can do is guess. Get that pump running and shut off a breaker at a time until it loses power.

I'd guess at whatever power source was closest to the pump location first.

Floats can fail more often than the pump, they can get stuck between wires or have debris on them that restrict them from rising to the required level to trip. Or they can just give up the ghost and quit working.

If you mess with the float be sure you get it re-secured in a position that allows it to operate freely.

Good luck, wear your rubber gloves.

Jesus help us all.

What are they gonna think of next?

Your alternating drain field system sounds like a great way to make a drain field last forever but how long does the rotating switch and related electric valves last?

The floats are confusing to look at.
The plug looks like a Christmas light plug.
It plugs into a reseptical and has a reseptical in the back
for the pump cord. They aren't connected through though.
If you see cord connectors, unplug them and plug the ones on
the outside together, eliminating the one in the middle.
That makes a direct connection of pump to power, with the float
out of the equation. Once you do that, the pump should run if there
is power.


If you go to jacking with the float, be cautious about the connection of the
float cord to whatever it mounts to. If it operates at a sharp bend, it will
soon fail. Make sure you engineer it so the cord is horizontal when
attached, that way the angles won't be sharp up or down.

All is contingent on having a better quality pump with a seperate float.
The Lowe's cheapie will have an integrated float.

As someone else posted, floats fail more often than pumps.

Our float was attached to the up pipe on the pump.
Fixing it required unhooking the pipe, finding the handle on the pump in the
water, and lifting it out of a 6"deep hole.
On the second go around, I bought a long piece of 1"rebar.
Painted it with several layers of paint, and attached the float to it.
Now, if there is an issue, I grab the rebar and pull the float out.
Easy peasy.

Wouldn't you know it, the next repair was the dam pump!
Bought a Goulds commercial job, capable of running nonstop,
because I've seen the cheapies fail pretty quick. Our ould one was
a Wayne commercial and had lasted about 20 years.
Figured not having to mess with it was worth something.
A Lowe's cheapie was $150, mine was $700.
You can't buy them unless you are a business (Or have friends😉).

Or a Amazon account...😉

The unit I have is a Goulds EP0411, found it on Amazon for $450. Spoke with a local handyman that works many of the neighboring camps roofs, sewers etc.. he has changed a number of septic pumps and stated the less the camp is used the more likely the pump will fail, the more they seat they fast they will freeze up.

For the prior 6 year since it was built the owner used it 5 or 6 weekends a year we retired here and converted it to a full time residence.

This system has been in place for 25 years. I bought the place 20 years ago. I was told to replace the sand and gravel at about 20 years due to build up ect, so I did. I didn't really understand how it worked, until I worked with the contractor who put it in. The sand and gravel weren't in that bad of shape, and it would have been fine for some time to come. As to the controller, it is a simple heavy plastic designed circle that turns on and off by water preasure. When I looked at it, it showed no signs of wear, so I imagine it will last for the duration. This whole system was top of the line 25 years ago. But a lot has changed since then, and everything is computerised now. I actually like my manual system better. A lot less to go wrong. Also there are no electric valves. The pump, and the float are the only electric parts on the whole system. Nothing electric on the mound itself.

I had never heard of a sand mound septic system until today, I don't think we have those in NC unless they are called something else.

Well that's pretty cool, water pressure controlled to shift.
Beats the hell outta what I was thinking.
Sounds pretty solid..

So?
Did ya figure out them two wires?

We call those systems sand filters. When looking for property, first check is septic requirements. When land requires a sand filter, for septic, it gets scratched from the list. No matter how nice the rest of the place might be. Ten times the price of conventional septic system.

Who told you that?

It's all we got along the coast here in Florida.
Just drop a tank on the ground and pile up the sand, no need to dig.
Last one I had installed cost me $5500, price of sands probably gone up since.

Easiest thing ever for replacing the drain field, just cut the top off the mound, replace the perf pipe and pile up more sand. You don't even mess up the yard.

Our houses along the coast are elevated 9ft so it's a down hill flow to the tank, no sumps required.

All new systems in NW Ontario have to be built above original grade.

Yesterday water came flowing out of the "sealed" 8x8 junction box; the water is now below that level so I opened it and hopefully it will dry out before I start working on the electrical connections to the pump.

Will take a picture of the layout and maybe someone can make sense of the wiring. The junction box has 5 cables coming to it with a mess of wire nuts connecting 2 floats, the pump power? and the 2 romex power cables.

The only places here that have them are into the 12 to 15.

Never heard of pumping your scheidt water up to let it drain down above grade.

Guess it works, since so many of you have them/know about them.

Are the sand piles planted in grass, or just a bare pile of sand in the yard to look at?

I've learned something in this thread and the timing is perfect with our expansion and renovation about to get underway.

Thanks

The only places here that have them are into the 12 to 15. Sand is a commodity! We import sand. And luckily water percolates well in pumice. So tanks are the standard, with leech lines! Different areas and different costs!

A few pictures will be worth a thousand words...hopefully🙃

There is about a 99.9% chance that second float, the one installed the highest, will be a high level alarm.

Problem is most septic system installers do their own wiring and some of them ain't real good at it.

Sooooo, it might get a little confuzing depending on what they've done to get the pump to operate AND the alarm circuit to function using a single power source.

The short of it is, the lower float turns the pump on and off and the upper float turns the alarm on and off.

Both floats are exactly like light switches you have in your home, they just turn the power on and off.

But there can be endless variations such as a nifty test button to test your alarm or even a reset button for the pump motor that can function on thermal overload.

Best is to figure whatever they did to start with worked so just pay attention to what was where when you started and just work with one wire at a time.

A quick image with your phone before you disconnect any of the wires can be priceless when it comes to putting it all back together.

If you give up and need to call a pro, call a electrician not a septic tank company.

They can be anything ya want them to be, it's your sand and your yard.

Common around here is to add a little topsoil and lay sod.

Gotta figure this, often here around me it's a 60 inch tall mound that's required.

To achieve that it requires 12 feet of slope around the mound, all four sides, to keep erosion at bay.

That requires a pretty big footprint for a 1000 gallon tank and a couple hundred feet of drain field plus the slope.

That slope works perfectly for a riding lawn mower to be able to get up and over the mound.

Some can't afford that much space so they put the system in a corner of a lot, build retaining walls on a couple of sides so they can encroach on their property lines eliminating the need for the 12 feet of slope on the retaining wall sides.

I typically, like many near me, add some extra sand to extend my slope on one side to a lesser grade so I can easily drive up on top my mound.

We're coastal, we get hurricanes, we flood.

A 5ft high parking spot comes in handy during King tides and storms that create tidal surges.

Pretty common to see motorhomes and other vehicles that are seldom used sitting atop septic mounds year round.

Some properties have pretty good soil for a septic system to start with so they can sink their tanks a couple of feet into the ground and just have a 3ft high mound.

It all depends on what your county engineers might require.

There can be a lot of variations.

Last system I did I called the most exspensive contractor in the county for a quote before I submitted my request for permit.

They gave me a price range of $7500.00 for a simple system and $17,500 for the most complex system our county might require.

The complex system required two tanks and a air blowing system that supposedly helps keep the little schit eating bacteria fellers alive in the drain field.

Ended up the county just required the simplest of systems.
I got more quotes and ended up paying $5,500 for that system.

These prices are probably on the low side, it's Florida, people work for cheap. Costs are hinged on a customer base that's living on fixed retirement incomes, they can't squeeze blood outta a turnip so they charge accordingly.

Once you've seen one of these mound systems installed you'd realize they could be homeowner done pretty easily.
Especially with the plastic septic tanks they use today that can be man handled.
It's just a matter of moving sand around and shaping it and gluing PVC pipe together. It's not rocket science.

You could do it with a shovels if you had too, everybody and their brother owns a little Kubota with a bucket on it anymore, that'd make it a breeze.
My last contractor showed up with a little skidsteer which worked out well.

So they can be anything from a Tulip garden to a parking lot.

Mines gotta big hole in it right now.
My dog likes to dig in the sand, he knows there is something down there, he can smell it and probably hears it at times.
He'll dig for a while then just back up and lay in that hole.

So it's his sandbox...

There should be two romex wires, a 12 feeding the pump and on/off float and a 14 feeding the alarm float. They are supposed to be fed power on separate breakers should your pump burn out and trip the breaker the alarm still has power to trip the alarm. Wiring is fairly simple, the black and white on the alarm float get wired to black and white on the 14 ga romex. On the pump the black from the pump gets wired to the black float wire and the white float wire gets wires to the black on the romex. Then white and ground from the pump to white and ground to the romex wire. The alarms I use get mounted inside the house and plugs directly into a wall socket. The pump gets wired directly to a breaker.

Rained all day so no electrical work today..

All in good time