Both your septic system and your town’s sewer system take waste from your home and process it in some way. The waste enters both systems from a large drain that’s part of your plumbing system. Interestingly, this drain is often called the sewer pipe or sewer drain whether it goes to the sewer system or your septic tank. However, the two systems take care of waste differently.

How Your Septic System Works

If your home has a private septic tank, you are responsible for its upkeep. This means being careful about what you flush down your drains, how much water you use, and how often you do laundry. You also make sure your tank is inspected by professionals every few years and pumped when necessary. You’ll also need to replace your septic tank when it comes to the end of its 40-year-old working life. Here’s how it handles waste:

• Waste enters the septic tank through your home’s sewer drain.
• The waste separates into three levels. Soaps, fats, and grease form a scum at the top; there’s effluent in the middle; and solid waste sinks to the bottom. The solid waste is broken down by bacteria.
• The effluent moves into a separate chamber.
• The excess effluent then moves into a distribution box, which is connected to a pipe that leads to the leach field.
• Perforated pipes allow the effluent to enter the leach field, a ditch, or multiple ditches filled with gravel.
• Some of the liquid in the leach field evapotranspires into the air, and some of it sinks into the soil and joins the groundwater.

How a Sewer System Works

With a municipal sewer system, waste also flows from the house through the sewer drain. These drains are called laterals when they empty into a branch sewer that’s installed beneath the public street or road. There are manholes where drains intersect or change size to accommodate sanitation workers. They are protected by cast iron covers, which can sometimes be works of art.

The branch sewers then empty into large main, or trunk, sewers. Like your own plumbing pipes, these sewers depend on gravity. And like your plumbing pipes, the slope of these sewer lines keep the waste from flowing too quickly or too slowly.

Because municipal sewer lines can only slope so far underground, the sewage is helped along by pump stations. These stations pump the sewage to a force main. It finally reaches a wastewater treatment plant where it undergoes a series of steps to clean it.

Call for Septic Tank Services

One of the big differences between a sewer system and a private septic system is that you’re responsible for the latter. If you ever need septic tank service, don’t wait to call our professionals at Tampa Septic Company of Tampa, Florida.