Cesspool maintenance ?

[terracore]

Any tips for maintaining a cesspool? Ours has about 2 years of use dumped into it and it didn't come with an owner's manual. What are some good tips to maximizing the life of a cesspool? When is it time to get it "serviced" ?

[birdmove]

I'll follow this thread too. One gent here told me that I'd never have any problems with the system most likely.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[alaskyn66]

Just stumbled on this f.a.q. the other day. Somewhat useful.
http://www.mauisewer.com/faq_cesspool.htm

[Carey]

Had to smile, as at the start of this house adventure, we went to the Health Dept to get our cesspool plat, and we asked the engineer who was helping us to give us information on the upkeep of a cesspool, as we had septic & tertiary septic in the past( & the latter is a maintenance hog)....

So this very mature engineer looks at us & says "It's a hole in the ground, S*** goes in. What else do you need to know?"

So with that bit of advice, we usually use Roebic Cesspool Treatment, or similar, once a year...have no idea if that is all we SHOULD be doing...but .....welll...

ADDED: the Maui FAQ is good...but is for an area with more soils (esp clay soils) Some, to maybe most, cesspools here have more perc potential, esp. if thy are anywhere connected to lava tube or cinder layers...have seen commercial cesspools that were actually built into a lava tube...which was made into the septic leach .... so ....

[terracore]

Carey thanks for the pointer. I was wondering about an additive. I had seen the mauisewer FAQ before. We have done the usual things one can do (low flush toilets, low flow shower, HE laundry) but most people on catchment do these things already. And I'm wondering if they are pointless when we get 250 inches of rain a year.

lets keep the cesspool suggestions coming!

[unknownjulie]

The way I understand it, as long as you are on some kind of slope, then you never really have to pump them, and everything just sort of goes out to the ocean somehow. Not saying it's right, just saying what I heard.

[Rob Tucker]

I've never heard of anyone in the Puna area having cesspool problems. When I bought my place there was a 70 year old collapsing house and a cesspool that had half a century of use. I did pop the cap and look inside. It looked like it had been dug the week before. Our ground is so pourous that a clogged or over-flowing cesspool is pretty hard to find. In twenty years I haven't heard of one.

There must be an exception to that. Anyone?

[Carey]

I have heard of a couple, UH-Hilo Wentworth Building was a NIGHTMARE ....seems everytime I went to class they were there pumping it... (OK, not Puna, but just up hill of a lava tube commcercial cesspool/now septic that was spotless)
and then there was this thread:
http://punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2787

[kimo wires]

I learned a couple of things. Won't put coffee grounds in the drain anymore. I haven't looked in my cesspool since we first started using it in o8. I just thought if you built it in porous lava it couldn't fill up with water.

One Thing I can always be sure of is that things will never go as expected.

[kalakoa]

I fling my coffee grounds into the yard; they're high-nitrogen as well as high-acid. Plant something that appreciates them.

For the septic, I use the powdered stuff in the green can from Home Despot -- never had any problems, so I assume it's working, just like this rock I have that keeps the lions away.