Septic outlet issue
2006
Saturday, February 18
So, we were having this nice relaxing evening on Friday the 17th and then the darn alarm goes off for the septic filter again. Well... obviously something more was going on than to simply clean off the contacts. So we decided to silence the alarm and then take a look at it together, in the day light in the morning.
So this morning we woke up and had gone out there to take a look. Unfortunately, the temp had dropped in the 20's and the 2 inches of dirt, that Tim had reapplied on Wednesday, was solid as a rock. It had taken us about an hour to chop through that stuff. And of course when we finally uncovered the edges, the concrete lip was frozen shut. My Dad advised using room temp to luke warm water and pouring sparingly over the seem to free the lid as hot water would crack the concrete.
After finally getting the lid off, my jaw dropped when I laid my eyes on the outlet that the septic filter was plugged into. No wonders why it was shorting out.... it wasn't finished.... at all and in no way weather proofed... nor even looked grounded.... or even looked to code, for that matter. There was no outlet cover on it, nor caulk in the wire holes..... nothing to prevent the elements from shorting it out. We decided to run an extension cord, from an exterior house outlet, instead of plugging it back in, until this gets resolved.
On top of unfinished outlet, there were loose wires hanging. One of them even was air-spliced (wires connect by a cap & taped together), which to my knowledge is a code violation. I was like what the &%^&%^& is this? It's very clear that this job was never finished off the way it should've been.
One of the reasons I was so pissed is because the installer told Tim on Wednesday that they have no warranty and they just go by the manufacturers warranty..... and they would charge us to even come out and look at it, even though it's under a year old. I was so pissed.... considering that it's a brand new system and should have any issues.
After cooling off a bit, I immediately left a voice message with the installer, G&K Sewer, that basically stated I was furious to find the outlet not in a finished state and they better fix it..... properly and to code. Since it's the weekend and Monday is Presidents Day, I doubt we'll hear from them 'til Tuesday though.
That was my Saturday morning. At this point I had wished that we had met Jerry (our 2nd plumber, who finished the plumbing) earlier. He had told us, when we met him, that he also does septic. He also mention that he had seen we had broken ground, he was thinking of stopping by and asking if we had a plumber or septic contractor. Ahhhhh...... if only he had :)
Although.... then I wouldn't get to practice my counting-to-ten and raising my voice skills :)
Saturday, February 18
So, we were having this nice relaxing evening on Friday the 17th and then the darn alarm goes off for the septic filter again. Well... obviously something more was going on than to simply clean off the contacts. So we decided to silence the alarm and then take a look at it together, in the day light in the morning.
So this morning we woke up and had gone out there to take a look. Unfortunately, the temp had dropped in the 20's and the 2 inches of dirt, that Tim had reapplied on Wednesday, was solid as a rock. It had taken us about an hour to chop through that stuff. And of course when we finally uncovered the edges, the concrete lip was frozen shut. My Dad advised using room temp to luke warm water and pouring sparingly over the seem to free the lid as hot water would crack the concrete.
After finally getting the lid off, my jaw dropped when I laid my eyes on the outlet that the septic filter was plugged into. No wonders why it was shorting out.... it wasn't finished.... at all and in no way weather proofed... nor even looked grounded.... or even looked to code, for that matter. There was no outlet cover on it, nor caulk in the wire holes..... nothing to prevent the elements from shorting it out. We decided to run an extension cord, from an exterior house outlet, instead of plugging it back in, until this gets resolved.
On top of unfinished outlet, there were loose wires hanging. One of them even was air-spliced (wires connect by a cap & taped together), which to my knowledge is a code violation. I was like what the &%^&%^& is this? It's very clear that this job was never finished off the way it should've been.
One of the reasons I was so pissed is because the installer told Tim on Wednesday that they have no warranty and they just go by the manufacturers warranty..... and they would charge us to even come out and look at it, even though it's under a year old. I was so pissed.... considering that it's a brand new system and should have any issues.
After cooling off a bit, I immediately left a voice message with the installer, G&K Sewer, that basically stated I was furious to find the outlet not in a finished state and they better fix it..... properly and to code. Since it's the weekend and Monday is Presidents Day, I doubt we'll hear from them 'til Tuesday though.
That was my Saturday morning. At this point I had wished that we had met Jerry (our 2nd plumber, who finished the plumbing) earlier. He had told us, when we met him, that he also does septic. He also mention that he had seen we had broken ground, he was thinking of stopping by and asking if we had a plumber or septic contractor. Ahhhhh...... if only he had :)
Although.... then I wouldn't get to practice my counting-to-ten and raising my voice skills :)
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