Back filling trenches

[Jena]

They just put my new septic and leach field in. The trenches where they put the leach lines have piles about 2-3 feet high on top. How long until that settles and is there anyway to hasten the process?

Jena

[agmantoo]

wetting the area with a sprinkler hose at intervals should settle the dirt rather quickly. I do not understand why the dirt is piled as high as you mentioned. This is not a mound system by chance?

[wvpeach1963]

I always instructed my septic men to leave the leach lines piled at least 18 inches.

it will settle down and you will be glad your installer did this correctly.

Septic systems that have lines recessed due to not enough dirt backfilled will often hold water in those recessed trench's , saturateing the system and not allowing your system to work correctly.

I would leave those lines to settle naturally.

[rambler]

There are 2 ways to quickly settle dug ground. Drive on it & compact the heck out of it. Or soak it up real, real wet.

NEITHER is a good idea for a septic system. Most likely give you big problems.

Leave it alone, how ever long it takes. Probably through a winter & freezing until it settles good. Can't do anything with the land anyhow, so no rush.

--->Paul

[comfortablynumb]

it depends on how fast the bodies decay.

[Jena]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

it depends on how fast the bodies decay.

Oh come on now. Any homesteader worth anything knows better than to BURY bodies! Sheesh.

Hogs do a much quicker job on the bulk of it and the rest can go through the feed grinder and back to the hogs.

Jena

[Fla Gal]

When holes are dug during the full moon there's always too much dirt to fill the hole back in. This may account for the seemingling excess amount of piled dirt.

Even holes dug by the dark of the moon, if not tamped in some way, will have excess dirt. I wouldn't tamp it, just let it settle naturally.

[dragonflyz9C]

We had a new septic drain feild put in last summer and it settled quite a bit over the winter. We were told to just leave it till this spring then add some soil to level out and then seed it. I don't think I would do anything to it... just let nature take care of the settling.

[uncle Will in In.]

How many yards of stone did they put in the trenches? When it all gets settled down, there should be that many yards of soil above the former surface. Spreading it out later will cause most of the rain water to run off the leach bed. Martha says, "That's a good thing."
In the mean time, you can use the ridges for a lawnmore jump. LOL
I've got 40 acres with a house and barn that cost less than some of todays leach beds.
Best wishes Jena, Unk

[Jena]

They didn't use any stone, just these big plastic things. I guess that's progress, eh?

I will just leave it alone, but it sure is ugly.

Part of the reason I asked is that he stretched this thing all the way to the property line. There is no way I can get the mower inbetween the lines (there are four of them). I guess I'll have to tamp down a 42" driveway...or learn how to jump the mower.

Total cost for new septic tank and leach field was $4200. I got that 504 loan from Rural Development. 1% interest for 20 years. I think I will pay it off early

I'm extremely happy to no longer have a nasty, open pit in the backyard. $4200 is a small price to pay to be able to flush and have it all disappear, rather than show up again in the backyard.

Jena

[comfortablynumb]

Hogs do a much quicker job on the bulk of it and the rest can go through the feed grinder and back to the hogs.

you have to pull their teeth and shave their hair first, it goes thru the pigs intact.

crush the teeth and burn the hair.