You didn’t expect the grocery to be filled up that day. The line was so long. It was probably because of the hurricane alert announced an hour ago. You decided to get what you needed for the week so you won’t have to go out even if there was indeed a hurricane. After two hours in the grocery store, you finally got home. Rain fell just when you entered the house. Your faithful cat followed you from the living room to the kitchen. Cooking hot Bolognese pasta was the best idea in such chilly weather. The last thing you thought could happen was your raised mound not taking or holding water.
After a few hours, you decided to check your yard. It was severely flooded. The rain just kept on pouring down. When you finished using the bathroom, the toilet, sinks, and drains started to back up. The septic odors started to waft through the house. Even your cat decided to just hang out by the window to rid her personal space of the septic odors. You prayed hard for the rains to stop because your bathroom and sinks were in danger of overflowing with raw sewage.
Four hours of heavy rain finally stopped. Immediately, you called up your septic expert. In just a few minutes, he arrived and started correcting the dilemma. Your raised mound was not taking or holding water. This was a very challenging situation to be in as a homeowner because you can’t have your septic expert around all the time especially during very bad weather. You were just lucky that your septic expert just lived a street away.
The most common cause of the raised mound’s failure to take in water is heavy rains. The soil absorption system takes in excessive amounts of water, more than its normal capacity. Rainwater is doubled when the rain gutter actually drains over the raised mound. The rainwater penetrated into the system and takes over the space that’s supposed to be occupied by the outgoing wastewater. The untreated wastewater has nowhere to go but back into the house or onto the yard. If ever you used a lot of water during heavy rains like your laundry or perhaps soaked in the tub, this adds to the water load that enters the raised mound system. A sudden increase in water load also stirs up the resident bacteria that are supposed to have enough to me to do their job in breaking down the solid wastes that enter with the wastewater.
You have notices that your yard flooded during heavy rains. The immediate thing that you thought about was to have your septic expert pump out the raised mound while it was still raining. Your septic expert said that he wouldn’t have done it even if you requested it because when you pump out the system during heavy rains. All the mud and silt would just keep on entering the system to clog it further and you would have just ended with a failed raised mound. It was true that your raised mound was not taking or holding water.
Aside from heavy rains, the usage of the raised mound system is also a factor why it doesn’t take in or hold water. Homeowners usually resort to using antibacterial cleansers. These substances kill off the resident bacteria. If there are no bacteria to break down the solid wastes, then the entire raised mound system would just stop or fail. Then there is also the issue of dumping non-biodegradables like paint, napkins, and condoms. These are not broken down by bacteria and just stay in the raised mound to block the system. When fats are dumped into your sink, they stay as fats even if you use a garbage disposal unit. The fats and grease just stay in the tank until they get dispersed into the soil absorption system to clog the flow.
After the septic expert cleared out your raised mound system, he gave you a list of things to do to prevent the incident from happening again. You agreed to every reminder and even asked him to help you install a dry well after the storm. Your septic professional said that hopefully he would never get the call that your raised mound was not taking or holding water.