[AT] Tractor Shop Question

[Cecil E Monson]

	It hasn't been too many years since people put in cesspools
in place of their outdoor privys. And it wasn't too many years before
that when almost everyone had outdoor toilets and no running water in
the house except in the kitchen.

	When I was born my parents lived on a rented 80 acre farm in
southern Minnesota that had no running water except for the pitcher
pump by the kitchen sink. I guess they called them pitcher pumps
because it took a pitcher of water to prime them to get them to work.

	The property we bought a couple years ago in the southern
Catskill Mountains had a working cesspool that was filled in just before
we bought the place. Now the current rules say you not only have to have
a septic tank and so many feet of leach field depending on how many bath
rooms you have but also have to have a second approved leach field in
case your original stops working. I think this is an overkill myself
but what I think doesn't matter. It's the law for new homes.

	All a cesspool is is a tank that holds usually anywhere from
a hundred or so gallons to maybe 500 or so. They work the same as a
septic tank except they don't have a leach field. Most just had a
drain going somewhere downhill away from the house or simply just
leached the overflow into the soil. This was OK if you had a deep
drilled well but if you had a shallow well with surface water in it,
it could be a serious health problem.

	I think I'd do what Bear mentioned in his post - just put in a
couple perforated barrels to take the overflow. The last I heard they
were in stock at Home Depot and are cheap. The last time I put in a dry
well (as they are usually called around here), I dug the hole deep
enough to put in two of these plastic barrels with one on top of the
other. I packed a foot of 3/4" stone around the barrels as well as a
foot deep at the bottom. This was put in to take the water from a
washing machine and has never given any trouble that I know of. It
wasn't put in here where we live but upstate a long ways from here.

	I don't think I would ask a soul about this matter. If you
ask, they will say no. If you don't ask, what they don't know won't
bother them.

Cecil
-- 
The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
what you said.

Cecil E Monson
Lucille Hand-Monson
Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole

Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment

Free advice