Managing Your Septic System During Outages

Septic Tanks and Electricity

Septic systems are the soul of our communities; they are the systems that maintain the hygiene of our homes when a direct connection to the city’s sewer lines isn’t available. With the help of the microorganisms inside them, they can break down the waste components and treat the wastewater. Most modern septic systems rely on electricity to work, so when there’s an outage, especially if they’re frequent, some of its parts may malfunction. It’s important to understand how these two systems interact and affect each other so you will know if you need septic tank repair.

What To Do When There’s An Outage?

During a power outage, the components of the pump will not be working and as a result, wastewater will not be pushed into the drainfield. So, it’s only going to collect the wastewater, and once the outage ends, it will release all of the wastewater at once, overwhelming the drainfield and causing complications. To prevent this, when an outage starts, switch the pump circuit to 'off'. To do this, you should know where it is located, so try to learn this before an emergency. When power is on again, turn the pump on for only a few minutes and then turn it off and leave it for a few hours. This way, you’re controlling the amount of effluent that will go to your drainfield, and this way, the field will not flood. Once all of the collected water is treated, the pump is already going to turn itself off, so you can repeat the process until the pump shuts down on its own.