Here is a possible scenario. One day after work, you come home to your wife and kids and have a wonderful meal. Then you decide to take a nice long shower to relax and calm your nerves. Everything was wonderful. You decide to watch some tv and take a load off. Then you finally go to bed… That would be a great night. But unfortunately that’s not how it actually went. Tonight you get to learn, how to aerate a leach field… Here is how your night actually went. You just got home from working all day. Ragged and tired you come to the table to eat some dinner. You then decided to have a nice hot shower to relax your nerves and just rest to prepare for anther crazy work day. When you stepped into the bathroom, the sink, drains, and toilet were backing up. You had a feeling that this would happen because you didn’t accept the treatment suggestion of your septic expert a few months back. That’s when you called your septic expert, he said that he would be there in a shortly. When he arrived, he said that he would start aerating the leach field after he was done with the pump out. You asked him about the procedure because you wanted to take notes on how to aerate a leach field. Here is what you found out.
1. The septic system was pumped out and treated.
2. The aerobic treatment unit (ATU) was connected to an electrical source after it is installed in the conventional septic system.
3. The wastewater is then passed through aeration chamber so that the oxygen could be pumped into the wastewater. This is often equipped with a mixer to incorporate more oxygen into the wastewater.
4. The resulting effluent is then passed through a settling chamber where the undigested solid particles settle and separated from the treated effluent.
5. The effluent returns to the aeration chamber again for further purification.
After the septic expert finished with your septic system and leach field, he told you that the ATU should be well maintained so that it will be able to work effectively for decades to come. The alarms in electrical panels and the filters in the aerator should be checked by certified professionals. Take note that the effluent should be clear. This tells you that there is proper oxygenation.
You took down every bit of information that you could and decided that this would be a good subject to add into the new curriculum that you’re constructing. The septic expert left and after a few hours, the drains, sink, and toilet had much less backup than earlier in the evening. Aerating the leach field was definitely one of the best ways to maintain your septic system. Your architecture students would definitely benefit from this additional knowledge. Your only question was how to aerate a leach field and what cost was the conversion going to cost.