How close can you build to septic

[johnsmb]

I know you cannot compact the dirt RIGHT over the drain field - but how far away can you build?

I have a temporary goat night-time pen/dry lot that is about 15 to 20 feet away from the first of my drain pipes for the septic. I can clearly see where the pipes are - the grass is dry/brown in a narrow strip over each of the pipes. Is that good or bad that the grass is dry over the pipes?

Can I keep their dry lot that close to the drain pipes? Obviously this pen is compacted and bare dirt - but it is only 16' wide. I also want to build a small 6x8 shed for them - this would be about 20 to maybe 25' from the pipe.

[johnsmb]

And.... how close can I put the goat pasture to the drain pipes? I plan to run their small pasture parallel to the drain field. Is 10' away from the pipes too close?

[Cabin Fever]

You will be okay staying roughly 10 feet from the drainfield in both situations.

The only reason for the brown grass that I can think of is you're disposing of some type of material that is toxic to grass, such as bleach or salt from a water softener.

[johnsmb]

Thank you so much for the input!

I do have to sheepishly admit that we have the two goats on the drain field right now. They are in about 1/4 fenced lot. I just don't feel good about it - despite 98% of the people telling me that sure it's ok to do that. So, we will cut their pasture down by half and take them off the drain field (but very close to it).

Some of our neighbors told us that the brown lines in the grass were because the drain pipes are buried shallow and the grass dries out since it's roots aren't as long. These seems like a reasonable explanation. We'll see if it greens up in another month or two when the monsoon season starts.

[cfabe]

Yeah you do not want to run them on the drainfield. A good portion of the water going into the drainfield is lost through evaporation not absorbtion into the ground. And if the soil gets compacted from livestock you'll lose that portion of the drainfield's capacity.

[Corky]

I had to laugh when I read this.

When we bought this house we were told that they had no idea where the septic was but they had no trouble with it at all.

Being city folk and not having septic we were not concerned.

I did grow up here and have seen septics when I was a child so when I walked out on the patio and stared at the three round concrete lids in the middle of my back patio a
lightbulb lit in my head.

I said, "there is our septic." Milt said "no way."

"wanna bet!"

Sure enough, the septic is setting right against the back, underground portion of the house and the caps are...maybe ...three feet away from the back wall of the house.

No Joke! We have had it pumped three times in the past 13 years. It is a 3 compartment septic and does in fact work great. We do have a problem with the lines clogging but that is the lines, not the septic.

The top had collapsed and the septic filled up with rain water. The patio held so we did not know that.
When we had problems we called a Friend that pumps them and they found it.
They put a steel top on it and replaced some parts with the newer code parts and we were back in business. He said he had seen septics where the openings were inside a back room. Actually under the house. I guess we got lucky. Ours is at least outside.
LOL! Where is the leach field?? We can only guess. We know it goes out the south side and that part of the yard had a big retaining wall around it so we hope it is way underground.

[unioncreek]

Our drain field is in our pasture and you can tell where it is also. The moisture from it doesn't come up and evaporate it goes straight down. We have apple trees right between our drain field lines and I was concerned we couldn't use the apples off of them. I talked to the Dept of Ecology and state geologist and they said we were fine for our type of soil. The fruit trees would only be affected if there was some kind of heavy metals in the drain field.

In our area they can also be right up against your house as long as the drain field is 100 feet away from your well.

Bob

[Corky]

I re read this and thought I would say that the lines that we have problems with are the pipes from the house to the septic. We think they run slightly up hill.

[Cabin Fever]

Originally Posted by unioncreek

Our drain field is in our pasture and you can tell where it is also. The moisture from it doesn't come up and evaporate it goes straight down. We have apple trees right between our drain field lines and I was concerned we couldn't use the apples off of them. I talked to the Dept of Ecology and state geologist and they said we were fine for our type of soil. The fruit trees would only be affected if there was some kind of heavy metals in the drain field.

In our area they can also be right up against your house as long as the drain field is 100 feet away from your well.

Bob

The potential problem with your apple trees...or any tree for that matter...growing over your drainfield is the possibility of the roots growing into the rock-filled trenches and plugging them.