Digging Deep: The Hidden World of Excavation and Septic Systems

Join host Daniel Mitchell and guest Addison Fields, owner of Fields Construction, as they delve into the often-overlooked but crucial aspects of excavation work in home construction. From laying foundations and installing septic systems to navigating the complexities of environmental permits and modern technological advancements, this episode provides an in-depth look at the essential groundwork that supports every building project. Addison shares insights on how excavation and plumbing intersect, the challenges of evolving industry standards, and the impact of labor and material costs on construction budgets. Whether you're a homeowner planning to build or just curious about what goes on beneath the surface, this discussion sheds light on the meticulous planning and expertise required to ensure safe and efficient infrastructure. Tune in for expert advice, amusing anecdotes, and a deeper appreciation for the trades that keep our homes running smoothly.

Key Highlights:

• The critical role of excavation in home construction and septic system installation.
• How industry changes and evolving codes affect construction practices.
• The impact of rising material and labor costs on housing prices.
• The importance of hiring reputable contractors and understanding environmental regulations.
• Addison's personal journey from working with Mitchell's Plumbing to leading Fields Construction.

Don't miss this engaging conversation that uncovers the groundwork of construction with humor and expertise.

Welcome to Plumb Delusional, the podcast where Daniel Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Plumbing in Lafayette, Georgia, takes you on a journey through the pipes and problems of modern plumbing. 

Each episode dives into the nitty-gritty of the plumbing world—addressing common issues, uncovering surprising myths, and sharing memorable stories from decades of experience in the trade.

https://www.mitchellsplumbingga.com/
Phone: (706) 523-3201
Address: 206 N Duke St, LaFayette, GA 30728

Transcript

 Hey everybody, welcome back to Plum Delusional Podcast. We're here today with Addison Fields of Fields Construction. I'm Daniel Mitchell, your host. And we're gonna be talking about doing some excavating and the safety tank work and sewers and stuff like that. Just Addison, you got anything you wanna introduce yourself or your company?

 I'm Addison Fields, owner of Fields Construction. We do a lot of excavating, septic work, things like that. Glad to be on. And we're longtime friends of Mitchell's Plumbing.



 Used to work for Mitchell's Plumbing back in high school.



 And just glad to be on to talk about some of their work.

 Yeah, unless I guess we'll jump right into it.



 Most of the time people don't think about the excavation when they're building a house. I mean, that's probably the last thing they start wondering about. Is digging footers or putting in the safety tanks? It's all the pretty stuff they're really thinking about.

 Oh yeah, I mean, that's the big thing with the excavation is everything we do gets mostly covered up except for the last. So we'll usually go in and help the homeowners and contractors go in and lay out the house, lay out where it's gonna go. Clear the land, build the driveway, stub out the utilities,



 then we'll come in, dig the footings.



 Then after they get the house halfway built, 50% or so, we'll go back in and we'll put the septic in where the plumber type sits the stub out in and then we'll go come back after everything's almost done and do final grade and backfill and whatever else needs to be done.



 Yeah, that's a good thing about it is knowing your plumber, you can get your stub out in the right place most of the time.

 Yeah, a paint mark on the block seems to help a lot.

 Yeah, you get there and you're gonna put the septic tank on the left side of the house and the plumbers come out on the right side of the house.

 Yeah, and then we said put it in anyway and call the plumber and tell him the movie.

 Right, yeah, that's not the time it goes. Yeah, as Addison said, we've known each other for a long time. We've got a pretty good rapport together. We've done a lot of building and stuff together and they've been a lot of plumbing and a lot of dirt work we've done together over the years and stuff, but you come down the line and things change. I mean, we was talking about it on the way up here. It's just, it's funny how different aspects change as far as code or how you do something or the tools you use or what's required for this and that on piping or fill lines, fill lines

 just changed over the years. Oh yeah, I mean, just in the time I've been doing it, you've been doing it, we went from, we used pipe and gravel, then we went into the infiltrator and then swapped back over to, now we use EZ-Flow and some infiltrator and the requirements, the trench depths,



 the soil way we classify, we used to do park tests. Now we do soil scientists have to classify the soil, health department rights, permeates. We have to install to the permit. So I mean, that's, everything has changed. Everything's a little more growing with technology, the way things come about.

 Yeah,



 well, I guess one of the situations that you get into is the, you was talking about park test or the soil analysis. Now they get down to soil analysis and in fact, they got to write a percolation rate or the absorption rate, you got to get into different types of aerobic systems.



 ATUs and drip systems and, and Elgin systems, some experimental systems, they still put in some of the,



 what do you call those?



 Wetland systems. Yeah, I was thinking pond systems. Yeah, but it's basically what it is. It's a wetland system.



 And like, it bases a lot of stuff on the soil classification, our depth of bedrock, we can have good soil, but our depth of bedrock's only 24 inches. Well, we got to put it, we got to keep our 12 inches of separate, or 24 inches of separation from the bedrock. So that's one of the big things that can change where you put your house, how much it costs for your septic system,



 the products we can use, all that kind of stuff. It's one of the big things that, that's why they make you get that environmental permit before we get the building permit to make sure that we can actually put a system in on your piece of property that will work for a long time.

 Yeah, the cost of systems has got a whole lot more. Oh yeah.

 I mean, I can remember. 2020, it went up 53% just the cost of the product, not to mention the cost of our machines and the cost of labors drastically increased. I mean, it's definitely up 50 to 60% all across the board on everything for what it costs now.

 Yeah, that's one thing that I think, I think that's what drove the cost of housing up is people don't really realize how much the stuff, the unseen stuff that costs so much, like the heating in there, the plumbing, the septic tank, the dirt work and stuff like that. And it's went up not only because of, you know, products costing a lot, it's went up because like you said, labor, you've got to have, you know, it's a workers market as I call it. You know, if you've got a good work ethic and you're wanting a job, you're worth about what you want.

 Oh yeah, yeah, it's definitely difficult, especially to find, you know, when I was in high school, there was always at least 10 or 15 of us that was always looking for something to do. We wanted to make some money, you know, and if, man, if we could make 10 bucks an hour, we were just tickled to death. And those days are long gone. Even finding somebody to do that is a chore, even if no matter the cost of the labor, just finding somebody that wants to fill that position, that wants to use a shovel, that wants to work in septic, that wants to do the things, it's dirty, it's hot, it's cold, it's all those things. Just finding that is a problem in itself.

 Yeah, I remember two young punks that went out and tried to find stuff to do. We even found some port-a-toile at one time.

 Yeah, we put a bunch of port-a-toile together one time and old barn, yep, sure did.

 Yeah, I guess that's one thing that's always kept us out in this trade era, is you've got to have a want to be hands-on kind of stuff.



 I mean, when I was in school, you know, I knew I didn't want to go to college. You know, I don't have nothing for school. Not saying that I want my doctor and my tax guy and my lawyer, I want all of them to go to school and be highly educated, but I don't really need to be that educated for that. I have certifications and license in certain fields, but I like being out there in the ditch, in the outside every day, you know, it's not always great, but I like it better than I will ever sitting in an office or doing anything like that.

 Yeah, it's like you said, being in the ditch, being in the ditch to me is the easy part. Oh yeah. The paperwork and the red tape and the permitting and the office work is what I really despise about the trades, as far as mine go. I would love to work, you know, starting in pipe ranches all the time. I mean, I'm just like you, you'd probably rather be in the ditch or running a piece of equipment than, you know, taking care of a continuing education.

 I want to tell everybody doing the job is the easiest part of the whole process. I mean, the back end stuff and the front end stuff, to get to where you can do that job, that's the headache. The job, the actual work, that's the easiest part of the whole deal.

 Yeah.



 That's the good thing about doing what we do is we can somewhat regulate how much we do at a time, sometimes, but people don't realize when you work for yourself, you pretty much overwork for everybody out there.

 Oh yeah, everybody thinks you go get your, you go start your own business and then you can be your own boss. Well, now I just got a bunch of bosses and everybody wants you there today and not next week and they don't want to hear that it rains or we can't get dirt or we can't get product. Nobody wants to hear that. Everybody wants you there right now. That's a huge, huge aspect that not many people see.

 Yeah, speaking of product, I know, I mean, you've talked about it a couple of times before.



 One of the biggest problems you have right now, I think, is getting concrete in it.

 Concrete has definitely been an issue. We have one company that's come in and kind of bought up all the mom and pops and you call and get on their schedule and they'll do it when they want to, basically.



 So that's concrete. It's gotten a lot better



 because it was two weeks out, no matter what.



 But now it's gotten better. Things have definitely slowed to some extent,



 but with the way everything's building, keeps going, that you never know. You always got to call and see, I got some schedule for tomorrow that we scheduled Monday. Used to, that wouldn't have happened. But it is getting better.

 Well, when you're preparing, I mean, and which I know the answer to this, but just some of our listeners and stuff that ain't quite as versed in stuff like this, say I'm going to just act like I don't know nothing about building. Say I'm going to build a house.



 And what's the first steps of figuring out what I need to do for a safety tank?

 Well, I mean, first thing you need to do is go, you're going to go to the environmental health. They're going to tell you, you're going to have to have a soil test. You're going to have to have a soil scientist. Now I'm speaking for the state of Georgia and our little area here. I don't know about other states and other things, but they come out, they get a soil test,



 scientist comes out, digs holes, looks at it, classifies the dirt. And every kind of soil has a percolation rate, a depth of bedrock. They'll give a table and a map, show them where these holes are that they mapped. They'll tell you, okay, so you got to have, you got a 24 inch trench depth. You're going to have to have 500 feet of gravel and a thousand gallon tank. If they got a garbage disposal, it'll be a 1500 gallon tank. We'll do that. And then they'll give that to the health department. The health department will write a permit that will give all this information. And that's what you need to give to the contractor. We get a lot of people that call and they want to say, well, how much is a septic, how much the cost of septic tank put in? It's like, well, it depends.



 I mean, I've done systems as cheap as $5,000 all the way up to $60,000.



 It's all how much footage, is it equal distribution? Is it the design of it? Is it engineer design?



 You know, how many linear feet do we got to put in? How big is the septic tank? We're going to use a plastic or we're going to use a concrete.



 All those kinds of things factor in and can make huge changes.



 And it seems like something so minimal, but it can make a huge change in what it costs



 or even the location. You know, if you have, you say, I want to put my house right here. Well, this is the only parking ground on this property. We can't put it right there because that's the only place we can put it. You know, we have a lot of good minbel soils around,



 you know, church heels, and that's good stuff. We got a lot of shack soil,



 but that can always,



 like I said, that could be in one spot. I mean, I own 12 acres at one time, but it had one tiny little spot in the very back of it. I could put a septic system, the rest of it was no good.



 And that's where we get into when you get the lesser ground with the higher percolation rates, you know, greater than 90 minutes. We'll get into some specialized systems, some equal distribution.



 We got some jobs going on the mountain right now or depth of bedrock. We got good dirt, it's just the depth of bedrock. It's so shallow, we got to put in a 12 inch trench depth. That'll require a different project, a low profile product.



 A lot of times requires equal distribution, things like that.

 So that's why when they say to put in the 500 foot, say, of gravel, is the reason you don't put in the gravel system is because there's a different product you can use that fits the criteria a lot better.

 The state of Georgia will approve products and we'll get a 25%. They call it reduction, but it's not really reduction. 25% of say, high cap infiltrator, or it's 35% on high cap, is equal to 500 feet of gravel. It's equal to that. So we're really not reducing the system. We're actually just using a product that's equal to with less footage. Because a lot of times we have space constraints, property lines, whales is another big thing. We got to stay 100 foot from a whale. Any kind of body of water, any kind of streams or creeks, anything like that can really dictate where you got to put it and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

 Right. And then just to circle back to you saying that you want your lawyers and doctors to be educated. I mean, nobody really understands how much you got to know about these soils and these systems to be able to install something that's going to be, have the longevity that you're paying for. I mean, these systems ain't cheap now. I mean, the average system starts at about $8,000.

 Oh yeah. Yeah, I tell people when they're looking at building a house around there, you can figure on $10,000 even if it's good ground,



 just because of, like I said, the soils and the products and all that stuff can really change things.

 And then just, let's just be honest. I mean, I know you long enough to know and you're like me, if you're paying somebody $10,000, you want to know their stuff.

 Oh yeah. I want a good job and I want it to be right. And that's where hiring a reputable contractor, hiring somebody that's reputable, insured,



 that's worked with the health department, that's worked with the people in the area, that knows the area. I mean, that's a big, big deal. I mean, I don't try to go way off to do them because I'll be honest, I've never put one in in South Georgia. I don't know their soils. I don't know how they do things. Even though I'm licensed, I got the license to do it. I don't know that I'd go down there and try to put in some kind of crazy system that I've never seen because



 I don't really know nothing about it. I don't know if I'm putting in a good product. Am I putting in the correct product? Cause there's a lot, even though the permits row, and they tell us how to do it, there's a lot left up to the installer to make the decision of what the best product is for the ground.



 And you know, when you start digging, I mean, you know, it can be good dirt and then it changes. And then we have to move, shift and adjust and make other arrangements cause you wasn't planning on that.



 Slaw things like that can really change and you got to really know what you're getting into with this stuff.

 Yeah, and then you shift gears and when you get into more dense populated areas and subdivisions and stuff, we've got public sewer. So then you get into, you know, sewer and then that comes more of a plumber's forte, but a lot of times like, you know, man, you've worked together, you'll excavate the ditch and I'll put the pipe in and stuff like that. So some homeowners will be looking at paying tap fees instead of paying a fish septic.

 Yeah, I mean, that's what, I mean, and if public sewer is available on your piece of property, you have to use public sewer. They will not write you a permit for the septic.



 And we do a lot of converting from septic to sewer cause when they built the house, there was no sewer. Well, then they went to put sewer in, they put the sewer in, then the, you know, their system fails. We go to look at it and say, hey, there's sewer here. Health farmer's gonna make you hook to the sewer. I mean, tap fees, and you know, as well as I do, they're all over the place. I mean, they can be $400 to $2,000 just for the tap. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, and like, I mean, I know we got one we got to do. We have to go out in the middle of the road. We have to control traffic. We have to do everything and put the road back to the county specs just to do the tap, you know? And you have to pay the tap fee. Even though they don't, some CDs and municipalities, they do their own taps and they'll put you a stub out right there on the side of the road and hey, it's easy to connect to, but some of them's not that way.

 Well, my understanding, they're getting away from that. A lot of them fall in a suit to be able to let the installer go all the way to the main. That way you're responsible for the tap. Once you do the tap, that way they ain't got these people calling them and saying, hey, the problem's in the road. It's yours, you know? The problem, if their main's not stopped up, it's not their problem. I know we've dealt with some of that too. And on top of that, you've got to be able to have the right equipment and the right bonding to be able to do those road cuts. Oh yeah.



 That's another thing you was talking about having a reputable company. It's not just anybody that can run out here and do them. And anybody can be an excavator or plumber on Facebook.

 Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot to it. I mean, there's a lot of easy ones, but there's a lot of harder ones too. And that's where, like I said, it's somebody that's been around it and knows the people, knows the locals.



 That's always gonna be your best bet.

 Yeah, you know, because like,



 Dad started the company back in 1976 and we've been around. I mean, your dad done excavation prior to you taking over the company. And we've been around for a long time, not saying that we're the only ones that can do it, but there's streets in Walker County, in Lafayette, Fort O, we know how deep the sewer is before we ever go out there. I mean, there's some roads in Lafayette the sewer's 15 foot deep. You're gonna have to have trench boxes and everything just to make a tap.

 Oh yeah, yeah. It can get real crazy real quick. You know, we don't all, and some of it, you think you know, and then you don't. I mean, I've had to dig, you know, I've had people tell me, oh, it's four feet down. Well, you dig six and it's still not there. You know, and I've had them tell me there's taps there and can't find the tap, you know. I see that smirk.

 I know exactly what you're talking about. Well, you're talking about that one we dug 20 feet wide. Oh yeah, big hole.



 20 feet down and 40 feet wide, I think. Yeah, it was a long way.

 Two or three track holes. And you're trying to bench down to get to it. Yeah, and then

 wound up being 30 foot from where the mark was, I mean. Yeah. It's just, and then, you know, during all that, you're burning fuel, you're burning time, you're burning labor and stuff like that. And then it's hard to, it's hard to recomp some of that because, you know, you're like me and I do it too. And I know you do. It's hard to pass some of that onto the consumer because, you know, we want that experience to pay off because, you know, most of the time it does. So, I mean, we, you can save your customers a lot of money by being well educated in how this stuff works.

 Oh yeah, I mean, you can take a day, job that should take a day, and it can turn into a three day job real quick. And, you know, you went out there and they had a mark and they said the tap's here, it's four feet deep. And, you know, it's a 20 foot run. It should be, you know, we should be done for lunch. Well, then we start digging. Can't find it, can't find it, can't find it. They come back out and say, oh, it's right there. And is it really, you know, we can't, it's hard to tell, you know.



 So that's one thing about our jobs. Another thing that keeps them interesting is you never know what you're going to get into. Oh yeah. So, and stuff like that. So, we get the tap in, we've got to, we've got to, we've got, we figured out if we're on sewer, we're on septic. So we've got the tap in, we've got the septic system, lay, you know, ready to go.



 We're getting ready to lay the house out. And then we've got to do the footing system.

 Yep. Yep. So we'll come in usually to, and you know, some people like slabs, some people want to crawl space. Everybody's got their preference. Some people think one's cheaper than the other. And I, it all depends on how the lot lays. So we'll come in, we'll either build a pad,



 you know, build it up level and put it on a slab. We'll dig footings, you know, we, here we got to go 12 inches in the ground, eight inches of concrete. And we'll come in, put rebar in, dig the trench, put the rebar in it, put our bulkheads in, grade stakes, have the inspection set up, and then we'll come back and pour concrete for them to lay their block or pour their slab or however they decide they want to do it.



 And then that pretty much so that takes care of you till the end, right? Then just come in and you do your great work.

 We come in to boot back field, final grade, seed and straw, you know, we like to come in after they've poured the driveway, if there's any concrete going in, we'll come back, back fill up to all that, make sure we got, you know, positive drain away from the house,



 pipe the gutters away if need be. We make sure, we like to do it because we make sure that it's not going on our septic system because you don't want any excess water dumping on your septic system, exactly absorbing the ground and take away from your capacity.



 So that's some of the things that we like to make sure that if we get the job, we get the whole job to do, to make sure that nothing's going where we don't want it to be.

 Yeah, okay, we'll take everybody on through that, you get the house built and you get it plumbed by a great plumbing company like Mitchell's Plumbing. And you've lived there for, let's say 30 years, you know, or how long should you expect to live in a house before you, and you have in your septic tank pumped every-- Three to five.

 Three to five? Five years is what we recommend. Yeah. If we do that, you know, depending on the dirt, obviously, the kind of soil classification we got, if we got good soil, I mean, you know, 20, I expect 20 to 30 years out of a system, you know, a system's gonna get the biomass built up around it. A cereal system fails from the beginning to the end. It starts failing at the front. And then, you know, if you come out and say, man, at the end of my, I know where they put their septic line, at the end of that over there, it's coming up. Well, the use of that means the system has failed, it's getting all the way through it, and it's time for replacement. And we go back to when we got that original permit, we have to make sure that there is enough room for an additional system. So there has to be room for two systems on your property.



 So, and in that case, we come back in, we will go back to the tank, usually pipe it over the old system or go to our repair area, and we will install a new system, maybe not as much footage as it was at the original.



 The more footage is always better. We'll go and put that in and do a replacement line there. And, you know, sometimes I have had to pump them. You know, we've had to, we have to put in a pump tank



 and then pump it up to a drain field that's higher on better ground, something like that.

 Yeah, cause now the environmental health usually tells you the two certain areas that you're gonna put, you have your original and then you have your Replacement. Future replacement. So the future replacement can be in a higher elevation and you have to pump it. And you kind of realize that when you, after you've been there so long, if you don't ever get on public sewer, you're fixing to have to put in this pump system. And when we're talking pump system, the reason is you won't stay away from a pump system. It's cost.

 Well, it costs and it's maintenance. I mean, I don't care if you put the best pump they make in and eventually it's gonna go bad. It's a mechanical item. Anything we can keep out of it mechanically is better. And a lot of times with the way the lots are, there's not as much good ground. There's not as much high ground. We're putting in a lot of systems that are in worse lots. So we know going in, when we put the original system in, hey, if this system fails, we're gonna have to pump it to this. Now in 30 years, where they get with technology and stuff, who knows? There's products coming out that are, that they're putting in systems that, ATUs, the sludge hammers, one of them, that can make that a class one affluent, it introduces air into the tank and it'll make it a class one affluent. So if we have a class one affluent, we get a little less trench depth, a little less linear feet that can help with that.

 And the reason they, the classifications is the amount of bio-matting in the system, in the ATU or in the, in the influent. It's just the sludge.

 The solids, the bad bacteria, with the introduction of air, we really help the degrading process faster.



 It'll reduce the solids and reduce the amount of weights in the effluent coming out of the tank. Of course, all the tanks have filters on them to keep the solids into the main septic tank. We put those on, whether it's just a gravity system



 or if it's a pump system.



 Yeah, we get a number of, we get a number of calls on the plumbing end. It's, you know, my commode's not flushing. So we go out for a, you know, a stopped up commode and we wind up finding out that it's, and the tank hadn't been, you know, regularly serviced and stuff so on. So then we call y'all in which, I think y'all have two companies now, correct? Yes, correct. You got one of your prodigies,



 Kyler Flagger.

 Yeah, Kyler, he's the head over the advanced septic side. So he does all the septic pumping and all that kind of stuff. He takes care of all that. So like when y'all go out and the commode stopped up and we find out it's backing up, it's in the tank, we'll dig the tank up. We'll usually pump it down, pump it out, clean it out real good, pull the filter out, clean that. A lot of times that solves the issue.



 You know, but 30 years ago, we didn't put filters in. There was no, you know, that didn't happen till probably in the early 2000s, we started putting filters in.

 Yeah, I think I see them in, and right at the end of, right at the end of 2000, 2001 is when I think the systems start implementing those filters and stuff like that. It's like, you know, when they, you go out to, a lot of people, a lot of people, you know, we go back to that three to five year pump and you go out, you have one of these systems that goes bad or stops up. You go out and the tank, most of the time you want to find a tank with about a foot crust on it, correct? Yeah. And then, but we, you know, we've went out and we found the ones that look like a brick, you know, and it's got a hand water, put it in the truck, backwash it, you know, the ones that you,



 you don't want me to call you on.

 Yeah, right, right. I mean, that's one of the things that like, with safety systems, most people that have safety systems, they don't even know they don't know there's a problem until it's a problem. They don't, they don't maintenance it because it's under the ground, you can't see it. You know, everything's been working fine. We've lived here 30 years and everything's working fine. Well, what they don't understand is that, that biomass, the solids are getting built up in the tank and you're reducing the effluent capacity in the tank and you're reducing the amount of time that that thing can, can break down solids and get the effluent out into the drain field.

 Yeah. And, you know,



 what's the oldest system you think you've ever touched? I mean, I know, I know I've seen some that was homemade. I've seen them out of 55 gallon drums.

 Oh yeah, man, we pumped the tank. Actually for you out there,



 it hadn't been pumped in 39 years. It took two and a half hours to get it pumped out. It was just so full of solids.

 Yeah, that was the one I was thinking about.

 That was a bad one. That was a pretty bad one. We added a lot of water. We backwash, we used a crust buster. I mean, we done everything to get that thing out and they just don't understand that, you know, they could have drastically reduced the life of that system even though it worked for 30 years. Maybe they just got good ground there, I don't know.



 But it can really take a toll on that drain field and it's a lot cheaper to pump that tank and keep that system in working order than it is to replace that system.

 Now you did mention something there that I do want to touch on is the elusive crust buster. You know, what is a crust buster for those that don't know it by that name?

 So the crust buster is basically a, it's got a engine on top of it. It's a gas powered engine. It looks like a weed eater kind of and it has about an eight foot rod on it and it's got paddles on it. It looks like a boat prop. So it's a poop blender. Yes, exactly what it is. It makes a poop smoothie. Yeah, a poop smoothie. And what it does is it allows us to, so when there's three layers in a tank, you got your scum on top, your effluent in the middle, your solids on the bottom. So we'll take that crust buster, stick it in there,



 run it eight to 10 minutes. That'll get it all, everything blended up and kind of suspended all those solids on the bottom, suspended in that and get that crust broke up and down in there. So we get everything kind of suspended in the water, makes it easier to pump it out.

 Is there a perfect smoothie consistency that you're looking for?

 Oh yeah, about like a chocolate milkshake. Oh, okay. If it's a chocolate milkshake, you can pull it out of there real good.



 And then it stirs everything up. What is the craziest thing you've ever seen in a tank? I seen, I was reading on the forum the other day and a guy found one of the end of, it was a capsule camera and he found it in the septic tank. Oh yeah. And when he was pumping it. But I mean, how close do y'all look to see what's up?

 I'm not looking real far. I mean, I'll tell you, we pumped one one time,



 pulled the hoses off and found a wedding ring in the end of our, in the end of where it goes into the truck, we found a wedding ring stuck on our valve. Well, did you find the bride that it belonged to? No, it was actually a male's ring. Here's a solid gold band. Oh, okay. Another solid gold band. It was, I found that. I've seen big gulp cups in there. I've seen aluminum full, T-shirts,



 needles, I mean everything. And honestly, all that stuff needs to stay out of the septic tank as much as possible. Some of it, I don't even know how it gets in there. I found rubber ducks and dinosaurs. Well, that's probably kids. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, we had a brand new house that we put in a sewer line for. They called after they moved in, stopped up, got out there checking, found a T-Rex stuck in the four inch clean out that's holding us up. Old dinosaur down in the soil. Yep, still digging up dinosaurs.

 Yeah, I mean, that's pretty good. So did, so was you, at that point you went from a septic tank installer to archeologist, right?

 That's right, that's right. That'll cost more.

 So you got to pull a different hat. That's right.



 That's the thing about it. I use it talking about needles. We see it in lift stations, you know, we go further.



 I mean, I don't know why, but I don't know if it's, you know, drug related or, you know, I know diabetics use needles. I don't know if they flush their needles when they go in. But we find a lot of syringes in-- Oh yeah, I've seen a lot of that. And I have, I mean, we have found, I mean, over the years, we usually open the septic tank before y'all get there and we'll try to, you know, see what's going on. I mean, we've found several things. We've opened septic tanks with the husbands being standing there and prophylactics being loaded. And they do not use the prophylactics. So we've, you know, that's kind of a hard one to deal with. So then we had to take off our, we took off our archeologist hat, we've got on our plumbing hat, and then we put on our couples therapy hat.

 Right, that's one of those things.



 I mean, we can't help it when we-- It's like opening a Christmas present on Christmas, you know, it's there when we open it.

 Yeah, part of the things that I see that is wipes, flushable wipes, even though they say flushable on the box, they are not flushable. If you have a septic system, they do not need to go, that can cause a lot of grief for a septic system. And pumping it out is terrible. I mean, we charge more because it just takes a lot of time to get all those wipes out of that tank.



 And it can, I've seen it, you know, pull pumps out of pump systems and they're wound up in the bottom of them. Cause the pumps in the pump systems are not grinder pumps, they are effluent pumps.



 And that's a horrible thing. I wish they would not call them flushable wipes.

 Well, there's, I usually try to tell my customers, if it starts with a P, you can put it in the toilet, a P, poop, and paper. I see, I mean, and you know, if it's flushable wipe, fiddling products,

 you know. It's hard on septic system. Huge chips,



 cigarette butts, I mean, all that stuff. It's taking up space that you need for your actual,



 all the biodegrading to take place.



 Right, and they tend to float to the top and they stay in the top and they'll go out. If you ain't got a filter in place, they want to go out into the absorption lines. And when that stuff gets out in the absorption lines, it does not biodegrade. So then therefore it starts stopping up your absorption lines. And now that's one of the things that helps them fail. Oh yeah, yeah.

 I mean, that's the thing. You want to keep it nothing but effluent in the absorption lines. Everything else needs to stay in the tank. That's what we're going for.

 Yeah. Are you seeing many people go to the, I know we've been, we've had a couple of homes in the last couple of years. We have been plumbing gray water and what they call brown water. And you know, gray water is your sinks and stuff like that. And gray water is your toilets.

 Right, well, I mean, that's, I've seen that. Most people don't want to because it's an extra cost. They want this out, you know, we want granite countertops and fancy light fixtures and high dollar cabinets. So we don't really want to spend any extra. It does save on that drain field was we were just putting in,



 we have to have so much aerobic treatment through that tank. And, you know, years ago, they just put, I'm just putting my toilets in and I'm not going to put my shower, my washing machine, dishwasher and sinks. I'm going to put that gray water going out somewhere else. And that's really not good on the septic system because you need that flow of effluent to keep the oxygen in the water, to help the bacteria biodegrade the solids in there. So that's one thing that they are doing, like, you know, a lot of people put their kitchen sink and their washing machine on a gray water system. Yeah.



 And that can definitely prolong the life of each system because we're not overloading that system as much.

 So that's why they still want the vanities and the showers tied to that brown water system is to get the aerobic treatment. Yes. Yeah. I know a lot of the sinks, the kitchen sinks and the dishwashers and the wash machines,



 we've seen some where they send them through filter systems and irrigate their yards with them.

 Oh yeah. And especially in more urban environments, that's definitely a thing. I think out in Texas, they do that a lot. I mean, they use these aerobic treatments and they get that down to a class one effluent, which technically you could drink it if it's a class one.

 You can drink it if you want to.

 Yeah, I'm not going to, but I mean, they say you can and it wouldn't hurt you, but they water their lawns, they irrigate stuff with it. And, you know, that's not really come here so much, but I mean, I'm sure in years coming, that's what's to come.

 Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, the thing about septic systems and everything, they're constantly changing. I mean, you know, we see it, like you said, we've seen a change in our lifetime.

 Oh yeah.

 You know, our dads put in gravel and corrugated pipe. I mean, that's all they know about. I mean, I remember when they, then they come out with the sock pipe. You remember the sock pipe? Oh yeah, yeah. Well, it didn't do good up here. I think what they do, there's a lot of this stuff develops in different areas, like we was talking, you said you didn't want to go down there. I think the sock pipe was for sandy soils. Right. You know, it's like the infiltrator, when it first come up here, it was more for sandy soils. It didn't really do as well as the new design.

 Oh yeah. I mean, like I said, I mean, the infiltrators changed a ton. You know, when it first came out, it was six foot sections. It couldn't hardly turn. And up here in the mountainous region we're in, you know, we got to do a lot of turns. We got to go around trees. We got to follow the contour of the ground to keep our trench depth the same. Well, that in turn, you know, that product didn't work that well. Now we're in the new stuff is four foot. It's easier turn, has a little bit more maneuverability to it.



 And then, you know, we have easy flow too. It mimics the gravel system and it will keep,



 it to me is, I like it better because it mimics the gravel. It seems to not crush as easy and certain things like that.

 Yeah, and we're bad. I'm bad to do it too. We call it by it's actually brand name, but we're really talking about when we say infiltrator, we're talking about chamber system. Chamber system. When we say easy flow, I don't know if anybody else makes a pellet system.

 Yeah, I don't really know what everybody just calls it easy flow, but it's basically, you know, styrofoam peanuts. But that is a brand name, easy flow. Yeah, easy flow is the brand, like I said, an infiltrator owns easy flow. Yeah. So I don't know that, like I said, I don't know anybody else.

 But they make a couple of different brands of chamber.

 They do make some different brands. I think Roth makes a brand, the infiltrator makes a brand.



 So I mean, it's just a chamber system.



 And we only install those that want to sponsor our podcast. No, I'm just kidding.



 But going back to the types, I know we've talked about the Elgin system. We've talked about easy flow. We've talked about chamber, and then they make a multi-pipe system. I know we've dealt with, is there any others that you know of that's up and coming?



 No, I mean, that's basically, a lot of times I see, I've watched on Instagram, YouTube, things like that. I see a lot of different ways they install easy flow and chamber system, the ways we do not in different parts of the country.



 You know, they put it in a lot deeper because of frost lines and things like that.



 You know, pressure systems, they'll put, we don't normally put pressure directly into our product. We go to a D-box or a splash box.



 But some places they put header pipes and put things like that. There's also a drip emitter system.



 The drip emitter, that's got three tanks and K-valves in different zones. That's for very shallow installation depths, very bad soils.



 And it's a very expensive, very mechanically intense system.

 Yeah, you even gotta have a,



 they, when they sell the product, they even sell like a three year service agreement. You've gotta have that thing serviced every year.

 As an installer, you have to stand behind that product for three years. You have to warranty it for three years. Then after that, you know, you're supposed to sell them a, you know, a maintenance package that we come out every year, check the K-valves, check and make sure all the zones are working properly. You know, they check the sludge level in the tanks to make sure everything's working right. They have an aerobic unit in them, an air compressor that it basically pumps air into it. You know, and it's basically pex pipe with little holes all in it that goes out. And every time that system cycles, it goes to a different zone. You'll see that in a lot of the mountainous regions where we're trench depth is very shallow. You also see it in, you know, very bad soils, very wet soils, high clay content. You'll see a lot of that kind of stuff.

 Man, you actually worked on one over close to the lake. Yep. Over there. Well, you know, that's the, the aerator pump that air pumps what was bad in it. Then we went ahead and pumped it. And we actually, you know, when you pump a ATU, that's another thing you got to know. That's another thing that falls under knowing your stuff is when you pump a ATU, that middle tank, you don't pump it down. So you taught me that that day.

 Yeah, you don't pump it all the way dry. You know, we'll pump it out and make sure we get any solids, any sludge level that's in there. But then we also fill it back up with water. It has to have that to work correctly. And so you can't just go out there and just pump them all dry. We have to pump them down.



 You know, we'll pump it down, put water in, pump more. We don't ever pump it completely out.



 You know, and a lot of people think when we go to pump their tank, "Oh, my safety tank's full." Well, that's, they're supposed to be full. Your outlet, your outlet of your tank is two inches lower than the inlet. So it stays at that level because we want that effluent and the time for that stuff to break down as it comes through the tank. So the effluent is,



 it leaves time for the solids to sink and everything to get suspended so we can get just the effluent. You know, there needs to be a T on the outlet of that tank to make sure we're pulling the water from the middle section. You know, I said the scum, the water, and then the solids. We need to make sure we're pulling that water, the effluent out of the tank, not the solids.

 Yeah, and I know some tanks are built with a baffle in them.

 Yeah, two people.

 All two to try to keep the solids on one side and the influent on the other side.

 Right, and it's a two-thirds. So we're actually the first third's going to keep our solids and all that. And we have holes in either the bottom, the middle of the baffle. It'll come through, keep the effluent on that side. They work really well. That's probably only in the last 20 years though. Older tanks, they just didn't have baffles. We just didn't know that. And in Georgia, you can't really put a filter on a single-compartment tank according to the health department.

 Yeah, and I guess one thing, that's one reason I wanted to bring you in and talk about this today is people don't really realize what's going on in your yard out there. There is a actual on-site sewage management system out in your yard that is constantly breaking down and taking care of the waste that comes out of your house that really needs to be, like we said, serviced every three to five years. You won't look in that tank, plump it down and make sure that you're getting the right



 use and flow out of that thing. That way, you don't have to come out of pocket 10, 15, $20,000.

 Oh yeah, and I mean, another thing too is that people,



 like I said, they don't call until it's a problem. And in the three to five years, that can go even more depending on how much water usage you use. So if you got a big house and you got five, six, seven, eight, 10 people living there, you're gonna use a lot more water than a house with one or two people. So that also has an effect on the amount of system we have to put in, the amount of linear footage and the amount of gallons, because we're going on gallons per day that that thing can handle. And if it can't handle the amount of water, you know, and I mean, people don't understand too, you know, you got a toilet in your basement and that thing's running just a little bit. You don't ever use it. Well, when that little bit of water, that thing's running all the time, not only is it running your water bill up, it is drowning the septic system. It cannot handle that much water. I've been on several, I've went out and they want me to put in a new system. I go look at the water meter and say, you have any water running? No, well, we go and turn the toilet off in the downstairs basement that nobody ever uses. And magically in two or three weeks, their systems dried up and their systems handling it fine. It was the excess water. So we saved them, you know, from putting a $10,000 system in. We went to, you know, had a plumber come out, spent a few hundred dollars rebuilding that toilet. Now everything's back working correctly.

 Yeah, and I know people don't like to spend extra money, but you know, even with pumping a septic tank, it's probably a good idea



 that, you know, if you've got a big house or if you've got two or three extra bathrooms, to have somebody come out and go through the bathrooms, check and make sure everything's not leaking.



 I mean, and then if you do hear a commode in the middle of the nights, you know, come on and do that filling up. You need to get, you know, get ahold of a plumber, like Mitchell's plumbing. And then we can come out and get that took care of before you have to call someone while it fills construction to come out and do your save time. But if you're there, we're always here when you need a place to go.

 That's right. Yeah, that's what, like I said, a lot of this stuff comes up when, you know, they had a house that, you know, the kids lived in the basement, the mother-in-law lived in the basement or something like that. And then things have changed over the years. Now nobody goes down there. Nobody checks that. And everybody thinks that they go off, you know, your septic size by the bathroom. You can have a hundred bathrooms, just the bedrooms. How many people can occupy the space? Right. You know, we've done some commercial systems for schools and stuff like that, that, you know, they're talking three, four or 5,000 gallons a day. We got to have a lot of linear footage



 to handle that much water in that time.

 Yeah. Well, it's amazing what you get into. I know I was on the way up here, we was talking about, I said, we were going to talk about safety. I don't know if we could talk about it for an hour, but I mean, we've accomplished that pretty quickly, you know, and stuff like that. There's a lot that goes into septic and sewage and stuff like that.



 And I don't know if you feel like this or not, but I feel like, you know, in the fall of the year



 is when I see more septic systems give trouble. Oh, absolutely. Because probably because it's wet and I know roots grow in the fall and spring of the year. So you got roots and things like that, but I know that we probably get probably 15 to 20% more, you know,



 sewer system clogs during that time of year when it starts getting cool.

 Oh yeah. Well, I mean, you got to think too, you know, our pumping season more or less is basically like November to March because we're getting a lot more rain. Our days get shorter, so we got less sunlight, you know, and the septic system, the way it works is that, you know, probably only 20% of the effluent is absorbed down through the bottom of the trench. Most of it goes out through the sides. That's why, you know, a lot of times in the winter, we won't put them in if it's been wet, especially in high clay content soils because it smears the side of that ditch and that can cause you to lose your percolation. So what it does, it goes out the side up to the top, sunlight evaporates it out.



 So like in the dry months, you know, in July and August, you know, you don't have to have much, much drain field to be working for it to handle a lot of water because the ground's absorbing it, but as the ground gets more saturated and we see more, you know, less sunlight, more water, people stay indoors. They don't go on vacation, you know, as much during the winter. So that water usage is higher, you know, cooking around the holidays and all the water usage that goes in, you know, a lot of times, high clay content soils, we're going to have to watch how much water we're using because that water can, can't get out. It doesn't have anywhere to go. Cause with the sebriest system, basically all we're doing is allowing a void in the ground. Our product just holds a void in the ground for that water to set until it leaches out. And when you get into, you know, older systems that have, you know, like I said, fell from the front to the end, there's just not as much drain field left for them to, that effluent escape.

 So you're saying when we're having holiday parties and cousin Eddie rolls up with his camper and his crapper full, we don't know, with the cover, we got a clean out in the yard, don't let him use it.

 Right, right. And sometimes you don't even know, is that clean out? Is it before or after? Cause I, at some point, you know, I can't remember exactly when, but we used to put inspection ports



 in the top of the chamber products. And you know, you just start dumping in there. Well, you're dumping solids and everything like that inside of the system. And it's not been filtered out. Well, that can drastically reduce the life of that system very quickly. Yeah. You know, we've been doing a lot more of camper hookups for people building houses, you know, they build a shop and they want to, you know, dump their camper. That's always an option to put that in,



 but we need to make sure it's going in to the inlet side of the tank, not on the outlet side, into that drain field.

 Yeah, just because you find a pipe, it don't mean it's always the inlet because there could be PVC pipe on each side of that septic tank. So there goes, again, I know people are always trying to find a more affordable way, but sometimes the most cheap ain't always better. Because if you have a professional come out like yourself and you get them on the right side, they can dump their camper and get that installed without having to worry about, you know, saturating their absorption fields.

 Right, I mean, if you damage that absorption field, yeah, you may save a $50 dump or whatever it costs to pump dump at a park or something. But I mean, you can drastically increase the cost of that septic system, what's going to happen to that. Because, you know, we can't just go back where their old system was. We have to go to a new system. We can't go where the old system was. We can't just go and dig that one up and put a new one in because we've built that biomass in that soil. So we have to go to a new place. And I mean, it can get really expensive really quick.



 Well, that biomass, that brings up something here I want to do too. I do want to touch on this because I've had people talk about it. There has come to a situation where I have been to a couple of places and, you know, we have jitter systems now. And there is some companies out there that says they can restore your septic system with this jitter.



 You'd have to prove it to me.

 Yeah. I mean, you used to have this running joke. I had an ad on a radio station and I miss worded it as restore septic system. Oh yeah. Or restore field lines. And you come to me and you say, well, if you can restore the field lines, I won't know how. But there's basically once a field line has got the biomass in it. And the biomass is the solids. It's made it out of the tank into the absorption field, piled up against the walls of the ditch wrench and became like a dam to keep the water in. It's basically impossible to take that out of there. I mean, you might jet down through there and get a little bit out of it or pump. I mean, those outlets that we was talking about that we used to put on the chamber, I think when we first, I think I can remember, which I've got a little age on you, when chamber first come out,



 one of the things was you could pump it. Oh yeah. I think that's why we put those on there, but it didn't work.

 It doesn't. And that's the thing too is they, all the restore, you know, and like, you know, there's products that they sell at Lowe's, Walmart, Home Depot that you say, oh, we dumped that in the tank and it's bacteria. Best way I've ever heard that explained was like, it's trying to, you know, take a quart of sugar



 and dump it in a septic tank and like it was sweet tea, trying to sweeten it. Like it's not doing anything for it. Once that biomass built, you know, there's some companies that make a different kind of thing. You know, one of them's a probe, you stick in the ground and it blows air and it's supposed to, that may save some time, but once that biomass built, it's just gonna keep going. Like there's no, there's no saving it.



 But the jetting, you know, you gotta think you're digging this ditch, it's 36 inches wide. So three foot, you're putting a jetter hose that's, you know, a half inch and it's gonna blow this water all the way out to the edge of that ditch to break that biomass up.



 I'd have to see it to believe it.



 I just don't think that's, in my opinion, I just don't think that's feasible. Yeah.

 Well, I'll tell you what, we're getting close to the end of our time here. I appreciate you coming in. I think we've covered just about everything you could on a septic system. I know there's stuff that we could and we just wanna tell everybody, we appreciate y'all tuning in.



 This is October, I'm wearing, I'm sporting my Mitchell's Plumbing Breast Cancer Awareness T-shirt today. We just wanna tell everyone that's been affected by that terrible disease. We do think about you, our thoughts are with you. We know there's a lot of families that gets touched by it.



 And with that being said, we are getting ready to wrap up. Addison, you got any closing statements you wanna talk about?

 I appreciate being on. I enjoyed it. It's a good conversation. Like I said, if anybody wants to reach out or anything for, anything they need, we're Phil's Construction. We're on Instagram, Facebook,



 got a website.



 If you wanna ask any questions or have anything, just give us a call.

 Yeah, information on telephone is usually free, ain't it?

 Yes, sir.

 Yeah, I've got that. So, yeah, and hey, tune in next time for Plumb Delusional. We'll see you next time. And this is Daniel Mitchell.

 Addison Fields.

 We'll see you next time.