If your home is on a septic system and you have asked friends and neighbors about how often the septic tank should be pumped, you have probably gotten answers ranging from “every year” to “never”. The correct answer is it depends, but for most systems pumping the septic tank every three to five years is enough to will keep it working great.
If you ask enough people about septic tank pumping, you will eventually talk to someone who says something like “we’ve had a septic tank for 20 years – never had it pumped and it works just fine.” That may be true, but every septic system is different and waiting 20 years to have a septic tank pumped is just inviting disaster.
Septic tanks need to be pumped regularly because over time, the layer of solid material at the bottom of the tank (the sludge layer) grows. As the sludge layer gets deeper, it takes up more space in the tank and there is less room for the liquid effluent. The septic tank is sized to hold the liquid waste for about 48 hours before it flows out to the leach field, but when the sludge layer gets too deep it causes the effluent to flow out to the leach field sooner.
When this happens, the effluent carries more solid material with it which will start clogging up the leach field (also called the drain field). It can take months or years, but once the leach field becomes clogged its capacity to dispose of liquid waste will decrease and untreated liquid sewage will start making its way to the surface instead of leaching into the soil.
In most cases, the only response to a clogged, failed drain field is to abandon the existing drain field and install a new one. Avoid the expense of drain field repairs or a new drain field by having your septic tank pumped every three to five years.
