Well, it's been 2 1/2 weeks since I wrote my last post, "FLUSHING MONEY DOWN THE TOLIET" and we've only taken a baby step. :0+ We put a 5 gallon bucket of bacteria stuff down the septic tank and have flushed packets of it down every toliet almost every day. It's draining, but very, very slowly. Last weekend I tended my grandkids while Gilbert Girl and her husband went away for the weekend. I went to her house on Friday morning so she could leave, and I took most of my wash with me and did laundry all day while I watched the boys and while the girls were at school. That really helped. We are still showering every day, and I have to do a load of dishes at least once a week. Today I had to do another load of laundry. In the meantime, my husband is ordering 10 more 5-gallon buckets. He talked to the guy today and the guy said that if one bucket didn't fix it, then it was in worse shape than he thought. He also said that if we don't get the septic tank going, it will contaminate our water well. By putting the 10 buckets of stuff down it (and they guaranteed it will work 99%) it will basically clean all the soil in and around the septic tank. It's either that or dig a new septic system $$$$$$$$$, or have city sewers put in $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
So some good things and some bad things have come from this. The bad thing is that I am going to have to change a lot of my soaps and detergents. When we got the bacteria stuff, they also sent a sheet with a list of good products to use with septic tanks. I found out that everything I use is bad, such as: We use Dove bar soap and now we will switch to Oil of Olay bar soap. I have been using Cascade or Finish -now I have to switch temporarilly to an eco-friendly dishwasher soap and then once it the septic system starts working again, I can switch back. I use Pine-Sol on my floors and have to switch to Mr. Clean. I have to quit using Oxy-clean in my white laundry. We have to quit using anti-bacterial liquid hand soap and go back to regular hand soap, and get this: they said to use a fruit based soap. Does that mean Bath and Body Works liquid soaps?(woo-hoo!) I'll have to check. Basically I can't use anything with sodium or phosphate or bleach or amonia in it. Thank goodness it did say I can use Murphy's Oil soap still on my wood floors.
Okay, that was the bad. Here's the good :0) : My husband has decided that to help the septic system "get better" faster, we need to use less water. So he said I could go buy one of those front-loading hi-efficiency washing machines. I told him if I bought the washer, I needed to buy the dryer to match, because if I didn't and waited till my dryer went out and then went to buy one, it wouldn't match. So he said ok. :0D
See? Good things come to those who wait....and not whine. :0)
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5 comments:
Wow, what a hassle! I'm glad there is a light at the end of the tunnel! And I pray the 10 buckets fix it!
I hope it fixes it, too, because I am so sorry you have to go through all of this! That is a really restrictive list of products, kind of an eye opener.
By the way, I see you are reading The Mermaid Chair. Is that a Sherlock Holmes story or something else? I love that Sherlock Holmes series. (Actually his wife's)
Okay, erase, erase,erase. It isn't the same author. I am talking about the Mary Russell books. The Bee in the Sue Monk Kidd title threw me off for a minute. Mary Russell wrote The Beekeeper's Wife, The God of the Hive, etc.
they're gonna be so pretty!!! and at least the bacteria is working - even if its slow - that's way cheaper than the other two options. It sucks you can't use dove any more - everything else dries my skin out way too much.
I think if you just run a new line from the house off towards the South, I think, about 30 feet past the house, your septic tank will last forever. You know, just into the arroyo...
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