Maintenance
Although we list this as a con, it’s just a consequence of any human-made material. The reality is that your town’s wastewater treatment plants require a lot more maintenance than your septic tank for your home does, but you just aren’t personally handling it. Instead, you pay a monthly fee for someone else to handle it.
That being said, your septic tank will require to be emptied once every three to five years, as well as be inspected for any damage sustained or incurred. This is usually a few hundred dollars.
Repairs Are On You
If a problem occurs with your septic tank system, you are responsible for paying to get them repaired. When you use a town’s septic system services, they are responsible for fixing any broken pipes or mechanical parts in their wastewater treatment facility. That being said, you are actually paying for these repairs via your monthly fee, just like you are paying for maintenance as well. There’s not a lot free in this world, including disposal of your wastes.
One way to avoid costly repairs is to notice anything amiss with your residential septic system and to call right away. Soggy ground above your septic tank is one sign of a leak as well as funky odors as well from your ground or the fixtures in your home.
Vigilance of Your Drain Field
A septic tank system works by first treating the sludge that is a combination of your solid and your liquid waste and then releasing the treated wastewater into your drain field, or leach field, for final processing. If your drain field is not doing an adequate job, such as pipes are clogged or tree roots are disrupting the flow of these fluids, then you’ll need to have that repaired as well.
Space Issues
Septic system tanks can take up a lot of space, and if you have a small yard in a residential area, this can affect your usable space. For instance, you can’t plant trees on top of your septic system, nor can you put a swing set on top of it. You also have to have room for your drainfield. You can easily rupture pipes by digging around your septic system, and you can’t park your car on top of it either. Thus, the space that septic tanks take up need to be considered as partly-unusable by future homeowners.