Thread: Getting to be an expensive week

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Let me start from the top. The plan for heat this winter is to put a wood furnace in the garage about 25 feet away and pipe the heat underground into the house therefore keeping the mess in the garage. In order to do this a decent section of sidewalk had to be removed in order to put the pipes in but no big deal because they poured the sidewalk over my septic tank which hasn't been serviced for 20+ years and it should be pumped out, kill two birds with one stone.
Well, i ripped the cement out and poked around the ground to find the tank, no tank. Take a foot of dirt out poke around, no tank .Start on some more dirt and all the sudden I am wondering why I can't keep the skidloader bucket straight and why do I smell sewer, yep, back tire found the tank. Two more feet down was the tank, the lid completly rotted away and I fell through. I dug around it with a spade and the old tank was crumbling away so I got a new tank installed today only in a better location.
Its not all bad though, the old tank was packed solid so hard I could jump up and down in it and not go down a bit. I think we were getting real close to a disaster this winter.
More money comes in when the propane truck came and put in $800 of LP in this week ( thats were burning wood gets nice ). The other whoops was when we actually balanced the checkbook the right way and we were off $900..... for the worse.
I can,t wait till this vacation at home is over

Hmmm...At least you won't be out there doing that stuff in January dealing with frozen earth...Things could be worse I guess..

Better get back to work, sounds like you need a break!!!!!!!

You were jumping up and down on a rotted out septic tank!!! You're NUTS !

Sean

Originally Posted by sgo70

You were jumping up and down on a rotted out septic tank!!! You're NUTS !

Sean

When I read that I thought if I had tried that I would have hit a weak spot!!!

53 Chevy5
I hated to do it but I prepaid on a credit card 2,400 gallons just under $2.00 per gallon plus 7% tax. I was afraid if I didn't propane could be over $3.00 per gallon tough call. That is for the house and garage, I just hope I can be up to getting some of the old cars fixed up enough to make a buck or two.

Richard

Sounds like my time off! I spend a third of my days off keeping the house and yard alive for one more year! Our house was built in 1858, and is 100% wood. So if I skip any maintenance like sanding and painting window sashes, the repair bill for replacement, reminds me what a little provention is worth!
IC2 I'd misss the 30x45 pole barn too!
But not the 7 acre mowing!
New septic is not glamerous, but well worth the trouble! I also like the killing two birds with one stone approach!
I hope that the economy takes a turn for the better very soon. On the news yesterday the rate of forclosures on retired people is climbing. It makes me so sad to see people work so hard their whole lives and then get devastated in retirement.

We moved to a new house in 1999 to get a single level for my wife's knee problems (and then fixed up the upstairs after her second successful double knee operation) and the ground around the house was graded by a guy on a tractor with a blade; it seemed innocent enough. Then two years ago without any known cause the lid of the septic tank collapsed, probably cracked by the grading tractor. Well our cat was attracted by the odor and FELL IN! Then the cat got out somehow and wanted to come into the house!!!! Fortunately I lassoed him with some clothesline and tied him to a fence post while I played a garden hose over him. Of course he doesn't like water so he would take two mighty steps with the small slack in the line, leap forward and fly through the air with the rope bringing him back. We had to get a complete new tank since the sides were also cracked and we drenched the cat with liquid soap several times and finally brought him in and tied him to a faucet in a bathtup and lathered him up some more. The tank had to be dug out and buried in a hole in our woods and replaced by a new tank which we now guard carefully against tree trimming trucks and the crane that came in to remove the two pine trees that fell on our roof during Huricane Isabel several years ago. Fortunately we have enough wilderness forest area on our lot for the burial of the old septic tank. Strangely our tank is in the front yard due to a better slope there and for whatever reason the grass is not greener over the tank; maybe there is only a few inches of dirt over the lid because the grass does poorly over the lid! Here is a picture at Easter last year, some 18 months ago, when we really only had that one late snowfall. Although the house is relatively new it is getting to be the time for the first repaint that I am not looking forward to. Maybe I can put it off till next Spring.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Ain't home ownership a blast! Hank

Ah yes, the thrills of home ownership.

After putting in "low" buck items like a new septic tank, town water, a new furnace, a new driveway, a 2 car garage, a full length dormer my (ex) wife had a better idea. Let's move.

I have since traded that second house, cars and her for much better units. I have 3 garage stalls(OK), town water(good), sewer(very good) plus natural gas for heat(excellent) and a wife that doesn't bitch(well not too much)(extremely excellent)

Additionally, I no longer have a @#$% swimming pool(good) nor a 30x45 pole barn(very bad) or 7 acres of grass to mow(good) with this current house.

Additionally, I no longer have a @#$% swimming pool(good)

What do you mean, it's always nice when your neighbor has a pool

I almost always have to add new batteries to the camera to get pictures off to the computer but once they are on the computer the features on this site are easy to use. However, I usually have to run the pictures through the PAINT program and reduce the heigth and width by 50% to get it small enough for the Forum. However I still don't understand all the options on the older Canon A20 digital camera we won when they were hot stuff as prizes on a Coke carton. It is only a 2.1 MegaPixel model but even so I have to reduce the size of the images for the Forum. The cable from the camera to the computer is flakey at best but I usually get it to work on the fourth or fifth try. Hey I thought this thread was about septic tanks? No comments on the cat story? To me that is one of the best "almost bad" situations that turned out to be OK in our family history! The real moral of the story is to protect your septic tank site relative to vehicles running over the lid.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

[QUOTu

No comments on the cat story?

Don Shillady


I didn't comment on it but belive me, I was laughing out loud at that visual

Sean wrote:

You were jumping up and down on a rotted out septic tank!!! You're NUTS !

Sounds to me that he was jumping up and down on what was in the tank , not on the top of the tank. Very brave, or as you said just NUTS.

If it had been less solid he could have disappeared forever, or would have had to go live with the skunks (if they would have had him)