Installing Engineered Septic Part 1

Sharing the Journey

I’m lucky enough to have a friend who operates his own backhoe company of Sudexco. He was busy, but somehow found time to work with me on this project. He is doing an amazing/thorough job. I am the owner/builder of my own septic system. But since learning last week, God would like me to work with people to get this job done. Now that I contract with others, things go very well.

Septic Installation steps

But this blog is designed to give people information on the steps of creating a home on bare land in a very restrictive county in California. So… here is what happens for a septic system.

• Do a perc test and get engineered plans (if you need them (and you will need them)).
  • Cost in 2017 about $9500
• Get an approved permit from the county (takes about 3 months in Contra Costa)
  • Cost was included in engineered plans (how nice of them….)
• Lay out your stakes for where the leech field and tanks will go. Schedule a county tailgate inspection (in my case I had two of these because it rained all winter)
• Clean out the leech field of any organic material

• Prepare for the septic tanks (The leech field is the important/pertinent thing to do. But it cannot be pressure tested without some tanks)
  • Dig a really big hole for your septic tanks to go into

• • Verify that there is a very high water table.

• • Hope Samara from the ring doesn’t come out to get you (my camera doesn’t take good pictures at dusk)

• • Bring a backhoe bucket full of helpers

• • Pump out water with helpers

• Expertly set the septic tanks. My friend said that he’s never set more level tanks. Because of the high water table, he used the water to show how level the hole was and add/remove rock for the tank delivery.

Cost Analysis

So let’s figure out costs (that’s fun… not):

$9500 for engineered plans

$5000 for rock / sand for septic system

$5000 for 2 huge tanks

$5000 for labor/miscellaneous stuff.

That’s a total cost so far of $24500. And we’re not done yet. I still need some components for the septic tanks, like a pump, power panel, housing for the pump, electric wiring, piping for the fields, and weed barrier to keep weeds out of my septic system. I’m guessing that’s another $2000 for materials not labor… +$26500 just to poop!

Aquaponics Hobby

This would be a bit more depressing but I’ve found a new hobby to keep my happy. I’m attempting to get a certification in Aquaponics Design through a course I took over the last 8 weeks. It’s pretty exciting to think about what I might be doing in a year. Here is a hand drawn plan I drew of what my basic family aquaponics will look like. To see if I can cut it growing agriculture / fish.

Thanks for reading!