If your home is on a septic system, you may have heard about lint filters for your washing machine that help keep lint from getting into your septic system. These are available from various vendors online for a couple hundred dollars and you may be wondering if they are worth the money.
The short answer is that it’s hard to say. There are millions of septic systems in use around the country that are doing just fine without a washing machine filter. On the other hand, they certainly don’t seem to do any harm and they may extend the life of your drain field.
To make a decision, you need to understand how a septic system works and what causes it to fail. A septic system is made up of a septic tank and a drain field. When a septic system fails, it’s usually the drain field that is the problem. The drain field is a series of perforated pipes that are buried underground in a bed of gravel.
Waste water flows from your home to the septic tank where the solid material settles to the bottom of the tank. Regular septic tank pumping removes the solid material from the tank. The waste water then flows the drain field where it seeps into the gravel and the soil below.
When too much solid material finds its way into the drain field, the gravel and soil can become clogged and prevent the waste water from leaching into the soil thus causing the septic system to fail. Drain field repairs can be very expensive so it pays to try to limit how much solid material finds its way into the septic field. This is where washing machine lint filters come in. They trap the lint in your wash water as it drains out of the washing machine.
The idea of clothing lint getting into your drain field is particularly troubling because much if it is synthetic fibers that do not decompose. Once the synthetic lint gets into the drain field, it’s there to stay. Using a washing machine lint filter on your septic system can’t be a bad thing and may do your system a lot of good. In any event, it is a pretty cheap way to help extend the life of your drain field.
