Cesspool with or without holding tank?

[randomq]

A friend has an empty (grandfathered?) cesspool on her property, and wants to know if the waste should drop into a 50 gallon barrel placed in the bottom, or directly into the lava rock hole. There are some cinder layers so I think she has good drainage.

Any theories on which is better for maintenance or aina?

[leilaniguy]

The cesspools I've seen installed had nothing in them. I don't know what effect a barrel would have.

[Tink]

From what you describe it seems as if they have turned a cesspool into a make shift septic tank. That is, in a cesspool, all waste is dumped via sewer pipe into a pit, where the solids collect, and the liquid/dissolved solids leach into the ground. It eventually fills with "un digested" solids over time and has to be pumped, or a new pit dug.
With a barrel, similar to a septic tank ( they usually have two compartments), the solids collect in a concentrated area, are "digested" more rapidly, and the liquid drains out into the leach area without the solids "clogging" the leach area, or field.
I feel as long as you pump out the barrel when it reaches full, you will have a more efficient waste system that will let the earth handle what is given.

Community begins with Aloha

[terracore]

In most Puna cesspools, dug out of rock with no soil, the sewage falls into the cavern that was excavated, the liquid drains away, and the solids are eaten by the critters that live down there. I examined our cesspool both visually and also with a night vision camera at the end of a 10' pole and it looked brand new and empty. It's at least 10 years old. The cockroaches were reflecting the IR beam that was providing the illumination for the night vision. Trying to count them would have been like trying to count the grains of sand on a beach, or the stars in the night sky. When the liquids are allowed to drain away the remainder must be a cockroach buffet, because if the roaches aren't the ones keeping the cesspool looking brand new, I don't know who is.

[Tink]

Boy oh boy. If you were gone for an extended time, and your plumbing traps went dry, it would be a nightmare with all those critters running loose through the house!

Community begins with Aloha

[MarkP]

The septic tank catches the solids so that they don't clog the tiny pores in the leach field. In most cases here in Hawaii with cesspools the rock is so porous that the pores are really large cracks and the solids break down fast enough that things don't clog.

A proper septic tank is designed so that it catches both floating and sinking solids. If you simply have a barrel that's open on top the floating stuff will get through and the barrel might as well not be there. There are also size considerations. A barrel is so small that it can't function as a regular septic tank.

As for the aina there is really nothing you can do to a cesspool to make it perform like a leach field. Some people think that here in Hawaii the fractured and highly aerated nature of the soil and rock is such that cesspools are good enough. The DOH is still pushing hard to eliminate and phase out cesspools though. I don't feel that bad about using a cesspool since so few people rely on wells here, but they are not really the best way to treat waste.

[YurtGirl]

We had to work with an engineer to design a combo system before - Where there is a septic tank and then a cesspool in place of the leach field. The reason for it in that case was that there was too much water filling the holes, so there had to be the tank at the lower elevation and then a pump to push the effluent the cesspool that was higher up and not filling with water. My advice? Talk to an engineer. Atlas Engineering knows what they're doing.

Melissa Fletcher
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"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973