Shhhh...dont tell anyone... DIY Septic

I put 2 drums in a house with 3 people Its been 10 yrs and no prob

I as a septic system installer do not see any benefit to more than 1 barrel as I don't believe that the solids will leave the first barrel however for most campers limited use 1 barrel will prob last forever under most circumstances. I am also wondering why you put the rock on the plastic instead of plastic over the rock, The plastic will prevent the waste water from leaching in the ground, even if it is a cloth fabric I would be concerned about the pores getting clogged with grease soap ect therefore preventing the waste water from leaching into the soil. One word of advice is make DARN SURE that you do NOT leave your camper valves open, Even though you now have a septic system you MUST treat it the same as before or you will end up with a poop pyramid in your black tank and a very stinky food and particle buildup in your gray tank as you MUST have large volumes of water to remove the solids from your camper tanks!

We live in a class A motor home full time on land that we own and we have a 1,000 gallon septic tank. However, we use a urine diverting toilet. So, the gray water and pee water goes into the septic but the dry waste (poop) goes to the land fill or it can be composted. Because no solids make it to the septic tank, there will never be a build up requiring it to be pumped out. We have Stainless steel strainers for all of our drains which prevents even kitchen scraps from making it to the septic. We literally use a garden hose for our drain line to the septic tank. We live in a very strict county and they gave us a pass on the urine diverting toilet. Even if you didn’t want a dry toilet system you still could have run all your water through the four 55 gallon barrels and used septic aids to add bugs to break down the solids. By the way I have two degrees and licenses in the wastewater field and was superintendent a wastewater treatment plant before retiring.

It's not horrible and should work fine for a single person. However, if you do this again, or anyone else that is considering this, don't wrap the stone in fabric. Fabric on top only. If this were a french drain or a seepage bed to get rid of clean water - then yes fabric all the way around the stone to prevent infiltration of fines. When you are dealing with sewer effluent you want direct contact between the stone and the soil. At that precise location is where the bacterial action takes place to further brake down the sewer effluent. This action not only makes the system last longer but helps purify the wastewater to prevent ground water contamination. As a civil engineer we design the size of systems not just based on the capacity of water it needs to handle, but also the proper amount of time before the water perc's into the soil to actually allow the bacteria to treat the water.

As a retired,master plumber, I wouldn't have glued that.

Skills, persistence, patience, strength, curiosity, desire, determination...these are some of the qualities that make us in awe of you, Steve! Wow! That worked out great!

I am in awe of how you can figure out how to do anything you need to do. Great job, Steve.

That's amazing! You're a hard worker.

Nice work,great video!👍🏻👍🏻

Nice job. I like when folks post this content. Shows what can be done and others can try it or tweak it on their own. Thanks

Awesome job! If you detach your trailer from your truck and use the loader to lift on the tongue, you can turn it into a dump trailer 😂

People didn't used to have their counties go after them for just trying to live and survive. You hear older people say it used to be easier to get permits and do things. Its the corruption and the big developers that have singled everyone out so only they can get what they want. People forget that people used to do stuff like this. You should be able to do this and not have people go after you.

Great job brother, good information. 🤠👍⭐⭐⭐

55 yrs and our home built septic system is STILL FUNCTIONING JUST FINE

Nice tutorial and just what I needed!

Good job & vid, nice effort too. i would have done things a bit differently & had the black & grey go together. I built a quick, rough system years ago in far North Queensland, Cooktown, Australia, it was in the middle of rain forest. I used a rusted out 44 gallon drum, dug a hole 50mm wider, thin concrete bottom, then 50mm around outside of drum, a tee in & a tee out to 4 meter’s of slotted 4” PVC with heaps of rocks, stubbie bottles etc in a trench a couple of meters longer with black & grey going in this lasted for about 5 years before it needed pumping out with several people using this dwelling. I dont know how long it lasted after that, but I had expected the rainforest tree roots to clog the whole thing up well before that first clean out anyhow so was pretty impressed with the end results of 2 days manual work it took to create this system. TFS. Cheers

Steve, I really like your video. I had never seen this set-up, thanks for sharing. Have a great week.

I watched the whole video in awe! Great job. And then i let out such a loud gasp at the end!!! I hope that was an easy fix after all that hard work...❤

I hand dug one of these 20+ years ago for a guy that was living in an RV and needed a septic system!!

This is a great design thanks.