layla | Dealing with life's ... crap

Dealing with life's ... crap

The septic system froze. *weep* It's actually been happening for some time -- toilet's been flushing slow, the bathtub's reluctant to drain, and finally, a couple of days ago, it got to the point where it just wouldn't do it anymore, and we finally realized that no, it is NOT a clogged air intake that's causing the problem, because we uncapped the sewer vents and they are full of ice.

To make a really long story short, it is currently being thawed with the heating element from a water heater, lowered down one of the holes -- hopefully by now we've sufficiently worked out the initial side effects such as shorting out the circuit (no insulation on heating element) or melting the pipes (yeah, we did some of that too).

One unfortunate thing about freezing sewer lines is that they tend to happen a month or two AFTER the actual cold weather, because it takes awhile for above-ground temperature changes to propagate down through the ground. So you think you're safe and then ... wham!

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Seriously -- and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who I didn't know could handle the idea of pooping into a bucket -- have you guys considered the possibility of a composting toilet? Might make sense in all sorts of ways for you guys. You've got the space, you're both hardcore enough to not be squeamish about the idea, and for summertime fun, you can actually get them with a solar panel that charges the battery which cooks your excreta to ash for safer disposal. No joke: http://www.envirolet.com/50w.html

Duh. It's me. Who else would send you links about Humanure?

Oh, here's a page that talks about several kinds. Gotta love da hippies.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/03/the_hot_poop_on.php

I could probably have figured out that it was you. ^_^

It's something to think about, but since we do have a (usually) functional septic system, I'm not sure if it'll be happening anytime soon. There are a lot of other things around the place that we want to spend money on first, at the very least.

Besides, we'd still need the septic for laundry and such, unless we did some kind of gray-water reclamation thing.

Although ... a composting toilet would probably cut our water consumption in half, and water is expensive. Hm...

That's what I was thinking; more water to drink and wash with. Plus you can reroute the grey water to do other things like water the garden. If you eliminate your black water, you can just have one drain for the rest of the house, and use bio-friendly soaps so the garden doesn't get overwhelmed with phosphors.

Ah! You, too, eh?

We've just decided to let them stay frozen - the only working drain was the sink anyway, and we have the outhouse and a bucket under the portable utility sink, so it wasn't too much of a step backwards for us.

Still - argh!!

Good luck with the thawing. :)

At least it's not just us. Actually, with the light snow this winter, I wouldn't be surprised if that cold snap in January put a lot of people in a world of sewer pain. We've actually still got a backup outhouse so we're not in TOO much pain, but ... the showers and the laundry and the sink and all of that ... *sob*

I'm feeling suddenly nostalgic for my log-cabin childhood. No plumbing at all...sounds real nice right about now...

Unfortunately if we'd caught it early it would have been a lot easier to deal with. We had been thinking that the slow flushing was because the inside vent (the one that goes to the roof) was clogged with frost -- it's a narrow pipe that was damaged by last winter's heavy snow load. And Orion redid the venting, which helped for a while and further led us down a wayward path by making us think we'd got the problem nailed.

We've definitely learned something for next year.

...well. Good to know. I'm arctic/septic ignorant. I'll consider this an introductory class:)

Hopefully it'll stay purely theoretical for you. :)

By the way, I did get your email but totally forgot to ask Orion about it this morning (too much other stuff going on, obviously). I can give you kind of a conditional "yes" but it sort of depends on how the sewer stuff goes. I'd hate to spend the whole weekend messing with it, but if the current solution doesn't do the trick, it may come to that.

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Dealing with life's ... crap

Poopie!

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...you think you're safe then...

Re: ...you think you're safe then...