Most homes in a developed area have their sanitary waste line connected directly to a main sewer that runs directly to the municipal sewage treatment plant. These homeowners are required to do no periodic maintenance other than attend to a clogged drain which is often caused by tree roots invading the pipe.
About 25 percent of homes in America are not connected to a sewer, they use cesspools. Cesspools are a clean and effective way to get rid of the wastewater from the home. If these tanks are well looked after and managed correctly, they can give many years of faithful service, completely trouble free. For this to happen, it is important that regular cesspool inspection and pumping on Long Island be carried out.
Having regular inspections will help you in determining when the tank should be pumped; most cesspools need attention every three to five years depending on variables such as family size. Systems which have mechanical assist may need attention more frequently but the owner’s manual will address the schedule.
Cesspool pumping on Long Island:
When a homeowner asks how frequently his cesspool should be pumped, the answer is “it varies”. There really is no set schedule as the frequency will depend on certain variables. Although there are no set answers, there are ways to approximate when the tank should be pumped.
The approximations are based on averages. A four bedroom home for example will probably have a tank with a capacity between 1,200 and 1,500 gallons. Under these conditions, a family of four people should expect to have the cesspool pumped every 3 to 5 years.
What determines the need for pumping is the depth of sludge in the bottom of the tank and the scum on the top. When you have a maintenance service who attends to your sewer needs, they will make periodic inspections and measure these layers. These layers are totally dependent on the way the system was originally installed and how it is used. The primary consideration is the tank size as it relates to the size of the property. If you have a large home and a small tank, the pumping will have to be more frequent. Rarely is this an issue because the tank size is normally selected based on the size of the home which is about to be built.
The things that have the most influence on the pumping schedule other than size are the number of family members and how the system is used. It’s quite obvious that the greater the number of people in the house, the greater the amount of wastewater that will be generated. There is not much you can do about this but family size is something that has to be considered when scheduling cesspool pumping on Long Island.
