I’m looking at a park that has 18 tenant owned homes and is on well water and 2 septic tanks. Obviously I would prefer to avoid the septic tanks, but everything else looks good about the deal. Few questions:
- Does anyone have a BALLPARK estimate on what it would cost to replace a septic tank? I know that is a very broad question, but I’m just trying to get a feel for whether it would be $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or higher. Any thoughts on the minimum cost?
- Can most septic tank risk be mitigated through a proper maintenance program?
- When comparing septic tanks to well water, which do people consider the bigger risk?
Again, I know these are broad questions, just trying to get a feel for the price, so we can factor that in to our offer.
Thanks!
Hard to say cost of replacing 2 septic tanks with out knowing what size they are. Standard 1200 gallon tanks which are typical in single family are are $800.00 to $ $1200. I have seen plenty of small parks with only two 1000 gallon tanks. If they failure you may have to upgrade tank size. Granfathering only works until it fails
The general current design rule is 2 days tank capacity. EPA design is 100 to 200 gallons per day per person. 3 bedroom mh with 4 people would be 400 to 800 per day per home or 7200 or 14000 a day per epa. However epa is not always in touch with reality. Its pretty typical to find average usage to be in the 200 to 300 gallons per day per home. So 10,000 gallons worth of tank if you have to bring it up to today’s standards. Still not more than $30000 in tanks plus install.
The problem with having small tank volume is grease and solids can easily get into the drain field unless your vigilant plugging the drain field. Drainfields are the real problem. Do you have enough area for replacement? Tanks just cost money, drainfield cost money and real estate.
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What is plugging the drain field?
In a gravity drain field system the clean wastewater (hopefully not grease and solids) leaves the tank via overflow pipe that is usually 16" or so below the top the scum/grease layer. http://inspectapedia.com/septic/tank.gif
When the scum layer or sludge are to large solids can leave the tank and flow through to the drainfield. The drainfield is composed of perforated pipe and gravel (round rock or crushed).
The gravel creates a porous evironment for microbes to grow. These microbes filter and digest some of the nutrients in the wastewater. Microbes also grow at the soil gravel interface. When scum and solids get into the drainfield they plug the perforated pipe (occasionally) but mostly the gravel pore spaces. This prevents wastewater from seeping into the soil below the drainfield. It then backs up in the drainfield lines and comes to ground surface in complete failure cases. There is really no way to unplug the gravel pore spaces.
The solution is pump the tank before scum and sludge layer each exceed 1/3 of tank. Also install a biofilter on tank exit pipe.
Stephanie McAnuff just published some detailed information on park septic systems. I found it to be the best publication on that topic I’ve seen. I’m sure if you emailed her, she’d send it to you. “McAnuff Group’s MHP Weekly.” stephanie@mcanuffgroup.com
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