Anyone got any idea how to find a septic tank? We need to get ours emptied but we have to find it first! The helpful poo man said it should be 13 feet from the house and 12 inches down. Do most houses over here have them buried underground?! I can foresee a LOT of digging.......

I had the very same problem 6 months ago...! To start with, find the waste pipe the runs out from your bathroom....that should at least give you a general clue to where it is. Once you know the general area, get a shovel and hit the ground...you should hear a change in sound when your hitting above the septic tank.

If that doesn't work - call around the local septic emptying companies and find out who emptied it last - they should be able to give you an idea of where it is - this is how we found ours! Ours is an old one and is 6 foot away from the house and about 2 inches down!

Likely to be closer to the house that 13ft. Mine is about 6ft from the basement. Find out which direction the soil pipe goes out of the basement and start digging. We hired a bloke with a JCB to do this and he found it in half an hour or so.

OMG I hope we don't have to get a JCB! Why on earth do they bury them and then not mark where it is! We always had septics in the UK and the cover was at ground level Oh well, off to find my shovel, I'll try Amys method first!

It will be on the opposite side of the house to the well, and probably nearer the front - for ease of access for the people to come empty it - let us know how you get on...and don't fall in...!!

Remember what Irma Bombeck wrote. "The Grass Grows Greener over the Septic Tank". A very funny read. Should keep your spirits up while you are digging. Seriously though, if you have to dig the thing up get someone with a mini backhoe like this one. It will do much less damage to your lawn. It isn't that expensive and will save you a lot of work.

Ground here is too rocky to try digging myself. Total cost for Vac truck and JCB was $500 or so. Since it's 5 years since the tank was last emptied this seemed reasonable enough.

Agree about burying them and not providing a manhole access. You can of course have this done at an additional cost. Worth thinking about?

Hi.We had a problem finding our pipe runs and septic area when we first arrived,but an old neighbour who must have been at least 80 came round with water divining rods and found it all for us,i am sure this takes some practice but its a lot less work than digging good luck.

You run the risk of them freezing shut in the winter if they are not buried..this aint the UKs climate. Why dont they mark them? Why would you, once you know where it is, you know where it is, so why make the yard uglier for no reason.


Get a slim metal rod and poke the ground down to about a foot or so if you dont want to dig...If you hit a solid platform thats probably the top of the access cover.

Look in the basement to get a general direction...the cover should be at least 6 feet out from there, but local codes vary across the country. Patchy grass coverage might indicate where it is too as there is less dirt on top of the cover for the roots to get into. The weeping bed itself should be lush, the bit over the tank access is not guaranteed to be.

Good luck...you shouldnt need a back hoe...

Yeah, but one of the fun things about living in Canada is having enough land to justify the hire of heavy equipment to play...I mean do essential jobs with.

Aye, hands up if you now own a chain saw...

I do !

Me too.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned looking south of the border.

We moved into our house last year and although the previous occupants said they had it emptied a year before we wanted to get it over with, with a family of 5 they reccomended emptying it every 2 to 3 years.

Luckily for us the previous owners had given us measurements to the tank, they were off a tad though. Ours was buried 4 feet down, the first hatch I came accross was for the pump housing this was furthest from the house, so I dug a trench towards the house and came accross a baffle access and then a tank access from pump access to tank access was about 6 feet. so now I had a 6 foot by 4 foot deep trench and a mound of top soil sand and rocks. You may find a layer of sand covering your access points.

The tank access was about 6 feet from the house wall. Had a quick look and the tank looked full so called the pump guy out, $300 later I had an empty tank. Plus a lot of usefull advice about what not to put down the loo, such as Condoms, worst offenders apparently as they can wreck your pump or get into your septic field causing blockage, Feminine products came next along with face wipes, cotton buds, then bleech, paint, oil, grease, chip fat etc etc.

Apparently we caught our tank in good time so we can now gage how often it needs emptying.

They put them that deep to stop the frost getting to them, but the other day I saw a riser ring system with a sealable lid that basically brought the tank access to ground level, does anyone know if these are a good thing or a bad thing ie is my tank gonna freeze in the winter if I put one in then cover it with a planter?