Mystery mound in my front yard.

If it is a real mound system you should have a dosing chamber with a pump. Thus a manhole to get to the pump. See anything like that around?

L

No, nothing like that. The only kind of access or anything is the 4"pipe in the mound. Nothing else sticking out of the ground or any other kind of access point.

EDIT- if the pump would be electric, I doubt there is one. We completely replaced the breaker box and all the breakers. There was nothing which would have been a pump unless it spliced into a ran line somewhere and was not noted. Dont think so though.

It is an elevated drain field, rather common here. The soil is not right for water removal so the field is elevated to allow gravity to remove the water.

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If that is what it is, would it still have a leach line leading to the exposed pipe in the field? And, I dont think there is enough room between the house and the mound for a tank in between. It would have to be right up against the foundation. I guess I will just have to dig and explore it to find out for sure.

It is an assist to the final leach lines. Your soil has too much clay (or other condition), for a conventional system.

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it sounds like a mound septic system. Not all mounds need pumps. We have installed them to specs before with no pump. It depends on the system, soils, engineer. I would say that depending on your location that there are some things that may need addressing with this system, if you were in VT and had an exposed 4" pvc pipe it would freeze and you would need to service it to flush.

Laurie

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Simply to run a camera down the pipe and see.

All the guesses from any of us who are not local plumbers, excavators, etc.... Are worth exactly what you paid for them, and just as valuable. Ask around for recommendations for a local excavator who installs/repairs septic systems. Call this guy and ask if he could drop by and take a look? That provides you with a local relationship when you need his services in the future, and give you a clear idea of what all your "buried treasures" are. Good luck.

I'm a Septic Inspector.
It does not look like a Sand Mound. Too small. Sand Mound is going to be 4 to 6 feet tall, and at least 15 by 30 feet. You will also have a lift pump tank that is required to be daylighted, accessible at the surface.

If you have not had anyone look at your septic yet, schedule an inspection. They will uncover and inspect the tank. Then, most important, identify, probe and inspect your absorption area. This will answer many of your questions and get you on the right path to maintaining your system.

I find that the first thing a homeowner says when I find a failed system is "but I have never had a problem."
To a homeowner a problem is either a backup into the house or a puddle in the yard. That would be a gross failure. There is more to it than that.

Wonder if it's a buried sand filter. In our area, dig a hole, put in rock(2ft. or so), then special sand( 1 or 2 ft.), the whole thing is covered with dirt. Sorry I don't know more about it. I do know the special sand is expensive.

UPDATE

Finally was able to have my real estate agent track down the previous owner. I was hoping I could get a hold of him before doing any exploratory digging. He only owned the place for two years before me but it was worth a shot.

He called me tonight! He said the only reason he knows about the mystery hump is because he made the same call to the person he bought it from.

He said the person he bought it from told him that his wife had some type of oriental garden there and the pipes going into the ground in the hump were for better watering. Some type of Japanese garden? So, apparently it just a big hump of dirt with pipes going into it.

Does this sound right? I plan on leveling the area down as it kind of stands out in the front yard. Just a wierd big hump when everything else is flat. I will still be careful and dig and follow the pipes before just recklessly scraping it. Just because you never know if he got the right info.

So, I guess that solves the mystery of the great hump!

Just to be on the safe side, start your leveling very carefully.
When we bought this house there was a great long hump of clay running along the fenceline on one side of the house. I asked the previous owner what it was for and he told me that it was for a project he'd had in mind some years before, but never got round to carrying it out. So I levelled it. A month later we were hit with the first of several sever rain storms, and that was when I found out that the mound was to protect the house from flood water. The owner didn't want to admit that the house was prone to some flooding during the seasonal storms.

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Could it be where they buried the bodies?

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