It is officially fall, which means that it is very likely for your ground to be more wet. Between rain and the eventual snow or ice which comes with the seasons, the next thing you know the power is out and trees are falling. If you have a personal well and a generator, you know that you’ll have water for a little while. If you have public water you probably won’t have an uninterrupted flow.
With no power to your home, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be using a lot of water. If you have no power you’ll have no hot water. If it’s freezing outside – you can bet your shower will be like bathing in ice cubes. Unless the power is out for an extended period of time, none of this will have an effect on your septic system. If the power is out for days, then potential problems can occur.
If you have a gravity septic system, you’ll want to hold off doing laundry, dishes, or showers until your power comes back on. If you keep going like normal, you can potentially hydraulically overload your septic system. That means putting too much water in the system at once. This could cause the solids to be pushed out of the tank, into the pump or onto the drainfield area.
Some systems have timers on it, which should cause alarms to go off as soon as the power comes back on. If this happens, silence the alarm at the box by pushing the button and give it a day or so to catch back up with the water usage in the home. Watch for the light to go from red to green so you know that it’s safe to resume water use as normal.
If you suspect you have a water flow problem with your septic system, or are concerned about how upcoming weather will affect your septic tank, give your local Mr. Rooter plumber a call or contact us online.